Russia has banned entry to 227 U.S. citizens, the Foreign Ministry in Moscow announced Thursday.
The Foreign Ministry accused the banned individuals of playing a role in steering Washington’s “Russophobic policies” and being directly involved in “anti-Russian actions.”
The latest additions to Russia’s “stop list” include State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan and former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman.
Figures from the U.S. defense sector were also targeted, including Lockheed Martin President Shamala Littlefield, Blackwater founder Alfred Clarke and the managers of several U.S. arms companies.
So, too, were several academics subject to the entry ban, such as Columbia University professors Timothy Frye and Elise Giuliano, as well as University of Texas professor Steven Seegel.
The entry bans are a response to “the ever-expanding sanctions imposed en masse by the American authorities against Russian citizens for ‘supporting the Kremlin and the special military operation’,” the Foreign Ministry said.
Several U.S. Deputy Secretaries of Commerce, Treasury, and Energy and a number of American journalists also appear on the list.
“The latest expansion of the Russian stop list aims, among other things, to reinforce Washington’s reflexive awareness of the simple truth that any aggressive attempts will not go unpunished and will receive a decisive rebuff,” the ministry added.
Russia’s relations with the U.S. have deteriorated to unprecedented lows since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than two years ago.