Moscow - Journalists from EU member countries and the United States are not put on Russia's blacklist, yet Moscow mirrored the rest of the U.S. and European sanctions.
“We have given a practically mirror response but chosen to spare
journalists,” an informed source told Interfax in Moscow late on Tuesday
night.
He recalled Russia’s decision not to publish its blacklists and said
that individuals subjected to Russian sanctions would learn about that
when they filed a visa application with the Russian embassy.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said to Interfax
earlier Russia did not intend to publish expanded blacklists of
Westerners against whom it had imposed sanctions in response to similar
steps by the U.S. and the EU.
“We have no intentions of copying every time what our colleagues in
the USA and EU are doing not always wisely and often to their own
detriment, therefore we will not publish our expanded lists,” he said.
“If any blacklisted citizens of the United States or EU member
countries try to enter Russia, they will know they have been blacklisted
when Russian border guards tell them that they have been barred,” the
deputy minister said.
Profound disagreements over Crimea caused the U.S. and EU sanctions on Russia.
The first sanctions, which restricted the access to the EU and the
United States and froze assets, were imposed on a number of Russian
citizens after the Crimean referendum. The blacklists included a number
of Russian parliament members and Crimean officials. The Russian Foreign
Ministry retaliated against the move with sanctions on nine U.S.
citizens.
The United States and the European Union expanded the sanctions after
Crimea had joined Russia. The U.S. expanded the blacklist with Russian
businessmen and the EU added a number of Russian officials and
journalist Dmitry Kiselyov to its list.
