First EU-Russia Talks Since 2017 Begin in Navalny’s Shadow

(Bloomberg) -- The European Union is seeking to reboot relations with Russia after years of confrontation as President Vladimir Putin conducts a sweeping crackdown on protesters over the jailing of opposition leader Alexey Navalny.

“Certainly our relations are under severe strain and the Navalny case is a low point in our relationship,” EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell told his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov as they began talks in Moscow Friday. “But to build a wall of silence is not an option and my visit here is a way of talking about everything that matters to us.”

The absence of normal ties between the two sides “is not a healthy situation,” Lavrov told Borrell, who’s making the first visit to Russia by a top EU official since 2017. “We’re ready to respond to any issues you want to raise at today’s talks. We’ll try not to disappoint you.”

The meeting take place after a Moscow court jailed Navalny for 2 years and 8 months on Tuesday for breaching probation terms while recovering in Germany from a near-fatal nerve-agent poisoning that he and Western nations blamed on Russia’s Federal Security Service, known as the FSB.

The incident added to tensions following years of EU sanctions in response to Putin’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and support for separatists in eastern Ukraine. Relations dived further after the 2018 poisoning in the U.K. of former Russian agent Sergei Skripal.

Russia’s actions in Ukraine, the Iranian nuclear deal, the Covid-19 pandemic and climate change are among topics Borrell intends to raise with Lavrov, the European Commission said in a statement Thursday. The poisoning and jailing of Navalny and “concerns over fundamental freedoms and human rights in Russia more broadly will also be on his agenda,” it said.

“Expectations are low, there are few hopes for any breakthrough or significant progress,” Andrey Kortunov, head of the Kremlin-founded Russian International Affairs Council, said Thursday. Still, “nobody wants to burn bridges,” he said.

Putin, Poison and the Importance of Alexey Navalny: QuickTake

Putin has no plans to meet Borrell, though Russia attaches “great importance” to the visit and regrets the current state of EU relations, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call Thursday. “We would like to unblock our dialogue,” he said.

The EU sanctioned six senior Russian officials including FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov and Kremlin deputy chief of staff Sergei Kiriyenko in October in response to the poisoning of Navalny, Putin’s most prominent critic. The Kremlin denies involvement.

About 11,000 opposition supporters have been detained at protests in Moscow and cities nationwide since Jan. 23, according to the OVD-Info monitoring group. Social media in Russia has filled with videos showing riot police beating protesters and detainees being held in overcrowded cells.

Lavrov on Wednesday dismissed criticism from Western leaders over the Navalny case as “unseemly rhetoric.” He said he’d sent Borrell a video contrasting police actions against protesters in the West and in Russia to counter “groundless accusations.”

Borrell plans to meet with civil-society groups and academics during his visit, which will help inform a “strategic discussion” in March by EU government heads on relations with Russia, according to the commission.

“Beyond the issues of contention there are also areas in which the EU and Russia do cooperate, or need to cooperate more, that require our urgent attention,” Borrell said in the statement.

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