The Russian Foreign Ministry announced Tuesday that it is imposing reciprocal sanctions on Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and others.
“In response to a series of unprecedented sanctions banning, among other things, entry into the United States for top officials of the Russian Federation,” the senior U.S. officials are being placed on “the Russian ‘stop-list’ on the basis of mutual reciprocity,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a Facebook post, per The Hill.
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley was also placed on the list, along with “a number of department heads and famous American leaders,” the post continued.
“This step, taken in the order of backlash, became an inevitable consequence of the extreme Russophobic course taken by the current #US Administration, which in a desperate attempt to preserve American hegemony, made a bet, throwing away all decency…and Russia’s frontal restraint,” the Ministry added.
The post also noted that official relations could be maintained if the U.S. met Russia’s interests, adding “if necessary, we will solve problems arising from the status of blacklisted persons, to organize contacts of a high level.”
Other sanctioned include White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, Hunter Biden, Hillary Clinton and CIA Director William Burns.