LONDON –
Russia said Saturday that it has so far banned 963 Americans from entering the country – including earlier actions against President Joe Biden and other senior officials – and will continue to retaliate against what it called hostile US action.
To a large extent, symbolic travel bans are part of a downward spiral in Russia’s relations with the West since its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, prompting Washington and its allies to impose drastic sanctions on Moscow and increase arms supplies to Ukraine.
Separately, the foreign ministry said it had added 26 new names to a list of Canadians banned from traveling to Russia, including chiefs of defense, defense industry leaders and Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, the wife of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Publishing for the first time the full list of banned Americans, the ministry said: “We emphasize that the hostile actions taken by Washington, which are a boomerang against the United States itself, will continue to receive appropriate resistance.”
It says Russian counter-sanctions are a necessary response aimed at “forcing the US ruling regime, which is trying to impose a neocolonial” rule-based world order “on the rest of the world, to change its behavior in recognition of new geopolitical realities.”
Earlier names on the huge list included Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and CIA chief William Burns.
The new Canadian list was released four days after Canada introduced a bill that would ban President Vladimir Putin and about 1,000 members of his government and military from traveling there.
It included Jocelyn Paul, Eric Kenny and Angus Topshi, who were nominated last month for the new heads of the Canadian Army, Air Force and Navy, as well as heads of companies including Lockheed Martin Canada and Raytheon Canada.
In response to the sanctions, Russia has already banned Justin Trudeau, Finance Minister Christia Freeland and hundreds of other Canadians from entering the country.
Report by Mark Trevelyan, edited by Timothy Herridge
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