NEW YORK: Russia has announced it was banning “500 Americans,” many prominent figures of the US executive power, from entering the country “in response to the regularly anti-Russian sanctions imposed by the Joe Biden administration.
According to a statement from Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, the list includes Obama, former United States Ambassador Jon Huntsman, many United States senators, and the next expected chairman of the joint chiefs Charles Q. Brown Jr. The rambling list of names includes American late-night TV hosts Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, and Colbert.
The statement said: “The attached ‘list-500’ includes those in law-enforcement agencies and government who directly participated in the persecution of dissidents in the wake of the so-called “Storming the Capitol.” on 6 January 2021, scores of former US President Donald Trump supporters sought to stop Biden’s certification as president and attacked the United States Capitol.
President of Russia Vladimir Putin appeared to question the arrest of the rioters some months later, saying the citizens had come to Congress “with political demands,” Reuters reported.
Friday’s list includes CNN Anchor Erin Burnett. It is an update of a previously published longer list of sanctioned individuals, including CNN’s Chief International Security Correspondent Nick Paton Walsh, Senior Global Affairs Analyst Bianna Golodryga, and CNN contributor Timothy Naftali.
While the list was labelled, “500 Americans,” Paton Walsh is the British people.
The ministry justified the restriction in a statement on its website that read: “It is time for Washington to learn that not the single hostile attack against Russia would go without a strong reaction.”
It didn’t specify complaints against each individual or explain what the sanctions would mean beyond a restriction from entering the county.
The ministry said it is continuing to deny a United States embassy request for consular access to American journalist Evan Gershkovich “due to the failure to problem visas to Russian journalists from the Lavrov pool,” in an apparent reference to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s trip to the United States in April.
