MOSCOW, March 15. /TASS/. In response to Canada’s sanctions, Russia has blacklisted 313 Canadian nationals, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Foreign and Defense Ministers, Melanie Joly and Anita Anand, the Russian foreign ministry said on Tuesday.
"In response to the new sanctions hastily imposed by official Ottawa, which is apparently competing with Washington in Russophobic rage, and covering Russia’s top officials and practically all lawmakers, from March 15 Russia supplements its list of persons banned from entering the country with [Canadian] Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Foreign and Defense Ministers, Melanie Joly and Anita Anand. The blacklist also includes most of the lawmakers from the Canadian parliament’s House of Commons and aggressive pro-Bandera elements," it said.
The full list of Canadian nationals covered by the sanctions has 313 names.
The ministry stressed that this is a forced measure that was taken in response to "the current Canadian regime’s hostile actions going far beyond the boundaries of decency." "Every Russophobic attack, either attacks on Russian diplomatic missions, the closure of the airspace or actual severance of bilateral economic ties by Ottawa - to the prejudice of Canada’s own interests - will inevitably have a resolute and symmetrical response," the ministry emphasized.
On Tuesday, Canada expanded its anti-Russian sanction list adding 15 more individuals, including Minister of Economic Development Maxim Reshetnikov, Navy Commander Nikolay Yevmenov, his deputy Vladimir Kasatonov, Aerospace Forces Commander Sergey Surovikin, his deputy Sergey Dronov, Defense Ministry Spokesman Igor Konashenkov, National Defense Management Center’s chief Mikhail Mizintsev.
In all, Canada’s blacklist has 560 Russian nationals. Earlier, sanctions over the special military operation in Ukraine were imposed on Russian President Vladimir Putin, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and other government officials, presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov, RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan, TV host Vladimir Solovyov, TV Channel One director general Konstantin Ernst, businessmen Roman Abramovich, Oleg Deripaska, and Alisher Usmanov.
On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a special military operation in response to a request for help by the heads of the Donbass republics. He stressed that Moscow had no plans of occupying Ukrainian territories, but aimed to demilitarize and denazify the country.
Following this step, the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and several other countries announced sanctions against Russia individuals and legal entities.