Source: The Indian Express
On Thursday, April 21, Russia extended its ban on entries on the officials of the United States. The expansion went on to include the Vice President of the US, Kamala Harris, along with other officials. These other officials are reportedly 28 in number and include people like journalists and businesspeople in the spectrum.
The Russian foreign ministry published the sanctions list this week. The includes the founder of social media platform, Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg. Along with him, it includes many more such as Deputy Defence Secretary Kathleen Hicks and Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby. The ministry specified that the step came as a result to the ‘ever-widening’ sanctions that are anti-Russian by the Biden administration. Clearly, they upheld their claims of targeting top executives, public intellectuals and journalists. The targets seemed to mould what they called ‘the Russophobic narrative’ maintained in the public debate of the US.
“These individuals are denied entry into the Russian Federation indefinitely,” the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.
Along with Harris and Zuckerberg, the ban covers top defence and justice officials. In addition to them, the Chief Executive Officers of LinkedIn and Bank of America, high-profile foreign affairs commentators. Finally, it also included the editor of the Russia-focused Meduza news website.
On Thursday itself, the ministry gave a statement regarding the travel bans, and how it would apply ‘in perpetuity.’ Moreover, it said that that the sanctions listRus would be updated soon in responsible to the aggressive actions of the Western powers. Similarly, restrictions were put in effect on as much as 61 citizens of Canada. These citizens were also accused of shaping such policies those were essentially ‘Russophobic.’ The ones sanctioned from Canada are Cameron Ahmad, the director of communication to the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Along with it, Steve Bolvin, a Canadian Special Operations Forces Commander, along with others.
Additionally, on the same day, Russia reportedly ordered the closure of all consular missions maintained in the country. These missions are essentially by Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, removing all of their non-Russian staff. This was mainly a form of retaliation to identical moves by the Baltic states.
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Russia has imposed an "indefinite" travel ban on 29 prominent Americans, including US Vice President Kamala Harris and Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg, accusing them of a "Russophobic agenda."<br><br>The latest: <a href=”https://t.co/tqrPO56iJy”>https://t.co/tqrPO56iJy</a> <a href=”https://t.co/MFQnlJmXRI”>pic.twitter.com/MFQnlJmXRI</a></p>— DW News (@dwnews) <a href=”https://twitter.com/dwnews/status/1517180108150292480?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>April 21, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
