Russia puts Jill Biden and daughter Ashley on their ‘stop list’ as they expand sanctions to include 25 more prominent Americans
In retaliation for the actions taken by the United States against Russia due to its involvement in the war in Ukraine, Russia has added U.S. President Joe Biden’s wife, Jill, and daughter, Ashley, to its list of Americans subject to sanctions.
23 additional academics and American officials, including Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senators Charles Grassley, Kirsten Gillebrand, Susan Collins, Ben Sass, and Martin Heinrich, were added to the list, according to a statement released on Tuesday, June 28 by the nation’s Foreign Ministry in Moscow.
“As a reaction to the ever-increasing U.S. sanctions against Russian political and public figures, 25 Americans are listed on the’stop list’ from among the senators responsible for creating a xenophobic narrative, members of the so-called McFaul-Yermak group, which develops recommendations on anti-Russian policies.
They are banned from entering Russian territory.
Biden and his family joined a host of US senators on the list, including Susan Collins of Maine, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Charles Grassley of Iowa, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Ben Sasse of Nebraska – all of whom are seen as ‘responsible for the formation of the U.S’ Russophonbic course’.
The blacklist also included several university professors and researchers and former US government officials.
The step was taken ‘as a response to the ever-expanding U.S. sanctions against Russian political and public figures,’ the ministry said in a statement.
The United States has led international efforts to impose far-reaching sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, launched on February 24.
It comes just one day after the U.S. announced a raft of yet more sanctions aimed at crippling the Russian war effort by limiting Russia’s access to technology, global markets, and trade while freezing the assets of elites involved in Vladimir Putin’s regime.
Washington and the European Union have imposed sanctions against individuals, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, his daughters, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and members of his family, and several oligarchs linked to Putin.
The U.S. already has sanctions in place against more than 1,000 Russian elites and businesses seen as complicit in the atrocities being carried out by Putin’s troops in Ukraine.