Russia has put 227 US citizens on its entry blacklist, including State Department spokesman Matthew Miller and other high-ranking officials, the Foreign Ministry announced on Thursday.
According to a statement published on its website, the ban is a response to the “ever-expanding” sanctions imposed by US authorities on Russian citizens for “supporting the Kremlin and the special military operation.”
The US citizens are prohibited from entering the country due to their role in the “outlining, implementation, and justification of the current US administration’s Russophobic course” and for being directly involved in “anti-Russian actions,” the ministry explained.
The latest additions to Russia’s “stop list” include US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, former US ambassador to Russia John Sullivan, former US deputy secretary of state Wendy Sherman, and former US Treasury secretary Larry Summers.
The ban also targets executives from the US defense sector, including Shamala Littlefield, vice president for financial planning at Lockheed Martin (the maker of HIMARS rocket launchers) and Alfred Clarke, founder of the military contractor Blackwater.
“The current expansion of the Russian ‘stop list’ aims, among other things, to consolidate Washington’s reflexive awareness of the simple truth that any aggressive attempts will not go unpunished and will receive a decisive response,” the statement said.
The sanctions list, which now totals 2,078 individuals, also targets academics, including Columbia University professors and journalists from the Washington Post and the New York Times.
Russia’s relations with the US have sunk to unprecedented lows since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. Washington and its allies have imposed sweeping sanctions on Moscow, and Russia has responded in kind.