Russia imposes sanctions on Joe Biden and other high-ranking officials

Russia has imposed personal sanctions on US President Joe Biden and a number of other high ranking officials, a message posted on the website of the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

Russia imposed sanctions on the American president, as well as on many other US officials, in response to Washington's unprecedented sanctions against Moscow.

"This step, taken as a counter reaction, became the inevitable consequence of the extremely Russophobic course taken by the current US administration, which, in a desperate attempt to maintain American hegemony, has relied on the frontal containment of Russia, having discarded all forms of decency,” the Russian Foreign Ministry explained.

At the same time, Moscow does not completely refuse to maintain official relations with the individuals on the Russian stop list. Russia is still ready to cooperate to solve problems that may arise when organizing high-level contacts with high-ranking US representatives.

Russia's stop list looks as follows:

1. Joseph Biden;
2. Anthony Blinken;
3. Lloyd Austin;
4. Mark Milley (Mark Alexander Milley);
5. Jacob Sullivan — Assistant to the President of the United States for National Security;
6. William Burns — director of the CIA;
7. Jennifer Psaki — White House Press Secretary;
8. Duleep Singh — Deputy Assistant to the President of the United States for National Security;
9. Samantha Power — Director of the Agency for International Development;
10. Hunter Biden — son of the President of the United States;
11. Hillary Clinton — former US presidential candidate;
12. Adewail Adeyemo — First Deputy Minister of Finance;
13. Reta Jo Lewis — President and Chair of the Board of Directors of the Export-Import Bank.

The list is to be expanded.

The above-mentioned personas were banned from entering Russia, their accounts, assets and property in Russia will be frozen.

On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the beginning of the special military operation to protect Donbass. He also turned to external forces that might try to pose a threat to Russia and warned that Russia's response to them would be immediate and powerful. Soon afterwards, the United States, the European Union and a number of other countries imposed sanctions on Russian individuals and legal entities. In particular, sanctions were imposed on Putin himself, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, Defense Minister Sergei Shoygu and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.