Russia on Friday said it was barring 200 Americans from entering the country in retaliation for sanctions placed on Moscow by the Biden administration over the war in Ukraine.
Politicians, government officials and their family members, including Paul Pelosi and President Biden’s sister and brothers, were targeted by the sanctions, with Moscow saying they had participated in the “Russophobic campaign” against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government.
Russia said in a statement the ban was “in response to all new personal sanctions constantly imposed by the Biden Administration not only against Russian officials, representatives of business circles and the public, cultural figures, but also those who for one reason or another are objectionable to Washington,” adding that it was “on the basis of reciprocity” and for their support of Ukraine in the war.
Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Biden’s siblings Valeri Biden Owens, and James and Francis Biden were among family members included on the list.
Several senators, both Republicans and Democrats, were included on the list: Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.; Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.; Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn.; Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis.; Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.; and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.
Biden administration officials such as Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and Fed Chair Jerome Powell as well as Ted Colbert, the head of Boeing Defense, Space & Security, were also included.
The Biden administration and allied country sanctions imposed on Moscow after it invaded Ukraine in February have crippled its economy as it struggles to achieve its objectives in a war that has dragged on for the better part of a year.
