Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Volkov, thank you for taking the time to appear in front of us today.
You mentioned that sanctions are effective in countering President Putin's actions, a view I share. Alexei Navalny published a list of Kremlin oligarchs who are responsible for enabling and keeping President Putin in power. Some of those oligarchs hold significant assets in Canada.
Recently, the former world chess champion and Russian opposition figure Garry Kasparov also urged Western governments to apply sanctions on those Russians responsible for the poisoning and arrest of your colleague Alexei Navalny.
While the Canadian government has sanctioned some Russian individuals, it has inexplicably omitted others. To that end, I would like to ask you about whether the Canadian government should apply sanctions on five specific individual. All five of these individuals have been sanctioned already by the United States, by the United Kingdom and by the European Union.
The first person I'm wondering whether or not you think should be sanctioned by the Canadian government is Yevgeny Prigozhin, who runs the Internet Research Agency and the mercenary Wagner Group, and is on the FBI most wanted list, and whose organization has targeted Canada and Canadian government officials with disinformation.
What is your view on putting him on the sanctions list?