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Expert says Canadian top diplomat’s presence in Russian blacklist won’t impede her work

However the expert noted that replacement of the top diplomat "is a serious change of the course because the former foreign minister was set on establishing constructive contacts with Russia"

MOSCOW, January 11. /TASS/. The presence of Canada’s newly appointed Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland in the Russian blacklist won’t impede her work, Director of the Institute of US and Canada Studies Valery Garbuzov told TASS on Wednesday.

"I don’t think this will impede Freeland to perform her duties," the expert said.

"Of course, this will create some inconveniences but in any case I don’t think that this will become a major factor that will prevent her work as the foreign minister," the expert said.

The inclusion of high-level political figures into sanctions lists has stopped to be something unusual and therefore this will hardly radically affect the Russian-Canadian relations, he noted.

"The emergence of such lists has resulted in a situation where the second echelon of the Establishment of all the Western countries has come under sanctions and Canada is no exception," Garbuzov said.

"The US sanctions list, for example, includes actually the entire top Russian leadership, except Vladimir Putin. The same can be said about our blacklist," the expert said.

As the expert noted, the replacement of the head of Canada’s Foreign Ministry "is a serious change of the course because the former foreign minister was set on establishing constructive contacts with Russia and changing the entire substance of the Russian-American relations."