Navalny row: Now, Russia imposes sanctions on Canadian officials

Russia on Monday imposed sanctions against nine senior Canadian officials after the Canadian government had imposed sanctions on nine Russian officials over Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny's arrest.

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The Putin government has banned the nine Canadian officials from entering the country which includes the justice minister.

In March, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had slapped sanctions on Russian officials over what it said was the Russian government's repeated "unwillingness to respect the basic rights of its own people."

Trudeau had said that Putin was "responsible for all sorts of terrible things" during an interview with a local radio station.

Foreign minister Marc Garneau had said that "Russia's gross human rights violations will not go unanswered," as it targeted the senior staff in President Putin's office and defence officials with sanctions including (FSB) director Alexander Bortnikov and Igor Krasnov, the lawyer who prosecuted Navalny.

Opposition leader Alexei Navalny was arrested in Russia in January as soon as he landed in the country and is currently serving a two-and-a-half-year prison term for violating parole while abroad.

Navalny was allegedly poisoned in Russia with a nerve agentNovichok and had to be flown to a Berlin hospital for treatment. The Russian opposition leader had blamed Putin for the poisoning incident which Kremlin has openly denied.

The Russian embassy in Ottawa had denounced the sanctions calling it a "hostile step" while asserting that "Ottawa should think about its own human rights violations including systemic violence against indigenous people".

(With inputs from Agencies)