For another year, the European Union upheld sanctions for violations of human rights around the world, including those imposed on the curator of the security bloc in the Chechen government Abuzaid Vismuradov and former police chief Argun Ayub Kataev.

On March 22, the European Union imposed sanctions against the Deputy Chairman of the Chechen government Abuzaid Vismuradov, who oversees the security bloc, and the former head of police Argun Ayub Kataev. They are banned from entering the EU countries, and their bank accounts, if found there, will be frozen.

Abuzaid Vismuradov, a childhood friend of Ramzan Kadyrov, is the commander of the Terek SOBR unit of the Federal National Guard Service in Chechnya. He has held the post of Deputy Prime Minister for the power bloc since February 20, 2020, according to Vismuradov's biography. A week before the imposition of sanctions, on March 15, Novaya Gazeta published the story of a former soldier of the Kadyrov regiment, Suleiman Gezmakhmaev, who witnessed extrajudicial executions in Chechnya. On March 19, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatovic called on the Russian authorities to investigate the information presented in Novaya Gazeta. “Today's decision confirms the EU's commitment to condemn human rights violations, wherever they occur, using all tools. The EU's global human rights sanctions regime, established on December 7, 2020, allows the EU to target individuals, organisations, and bodies, including state and non-state actors, responsible for, complicit in or associated with serious human rights violations worldwide. It provides for travel bans for individuals and and the freezing of funds for both individuals and legal entities. In addition, individuals and legal entities in the EU are prohibited from directly or indirectly providing funds to listed persons," according to a publication on the European Union website.

In Chechnya and in Russia in general, the European Union recorded "torture and repression against LGBTI people and political opponents," according to a release published on the EU website on March 22. Among the Russians who have come under the sanctions are the former director of the Federal Penitentiary Service Alexander Kalashnikov, the chairman of the Investigative Committee of Russia Alexander Bastrykin, the prosecutor general Igor Krasnov and the director of the Russian Guard Viktor Zolotov.

The head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, also came under sanctions, but this time by the American ones. The US Treasury Department included him on the Magnitsky sanctions list back in December 2017, calling him responsible for extrajudicial executions, torture, and other human rights violations in Chechnya. In May 2020, due to these sanctions, Kadyrov's Instagram account was deleted.