Russia has added U.S. President Joe Biden’s wife, Jill, and daughter, Ashley, to its list of Americans under sanctions in retaliation for Washington’s moves against Russia over its war in Ukraine.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, June 28, the country’s Foreign Ministry in Moscow said that 23 other academics and U.S. officials, including Republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, and Senators Charles Grassley, Kirsten Gillebrand, Susan Collins, Ben Sass, and Martin Heinrich, were also added to the list.
“As a response to the ever-expanding U.S. sanctions against Russian political and public figures, 25 American citizens are included in the ‘stop list’ from among the senators responsible for the formation of a Russophobic narrative, participants in the so-called McFaul-Yermak group, which develops recommendations on anti-Russian restrictions, as well as members of the family of President Joe Biden,” the statement said.
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.
