MOSCOW, May 19. /TASS/. Moscow has banned 500 Americans from setting foot in Russia in response to US sanctions, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Friday.
"In response to the staple anti-Russian sanctions by the Joe Biden administration, which are designed by Washington to inflict maximum damage on Russia, personally affecting officials and ordinary citizens of our country, 500 Americans are denied entry to the Russian Federation as a countermeasure," the ministry said.
The Foreign Ministry pointed out that Moscow’s sanctions list included not only "dignitaries, including former US President Barack Obama," but also current high-ranking officials from every level of the executive branch, former officials, as well as "the heads of defense companies that provide arms to the Kiev regime."
Additionally, first-time senators and members of Congress, who were elected in the November 2022 election, experts and employees of think tanks "involved in disseminating Russophobic narratives and fake news," as well as officials involved in persecuting "dissenters in the wake of the so-called storming of the Capitol" were added to the sanctions list.
Russian sanctions were imposed on John Tefft and Jon Huntsman, the former US ambassadors to Russia, Secretary of the US Air Force Frank Kendall and his former deputy Gina Jones, Secretary of the Navy Carlos del Toro, Brigadier General David Stewart, and White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Olivia Dalton. American television hosts and comedians Jimmy Kimmel and Seth Meyers are also on the sanctions list, along with Rachel Bauman, the policy advisor for Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, Federal Reserve Vice Chair Michael Barr, and CNN news anchor Erin Burnett.
In all, there are now 1,844 US citizens on Russia’s sanctions list, including the recently blacklisted ones.
"It is high time Washington learned that Russia will not just sit by and watch as it unleashes its hostile campaigns against Russia. Retribution will never be far away, whether that means tightening the pressure of sanctions or about discriminatory steps aimed at obstructing our fellow citizens’ professional activities," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in the statement.