Russia to bar people from a growing list of “unfriendly” nations as sanctions over Putin’s Ukraine war bite

Moscow – Russia said on Monday that it was preparing to restrict the entry into Russia of nationals from “unfriendly” countries, including the United Kingdom, all states of the European Union and the United States.

“A draft presidential decree on visa retaliation measures is being drafted in response to hostile actions by a number of foreign states,” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in televised statements. “This act will introduce a series of restrictions on entry into Russia.”

Russia’s top diplomat did not clarify the precise measures being taken.

After the West lifted unprecedented sanctions on Moscow following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to send troops to pro-Westerners UkraineRussia has expanded its list of so-called “unfriendly” countries.

They now include the United States, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, all EU Member States, and several others.

• Meet a Russian oligarch affected by sanctions

Russian carriers have been banned from the airspace of the European Union, the United Kingdom and the United States, and travel to and from Russia is now restricted. But travel restrictions are just the tip of the iceberg of international sanctions and exclusions imposed on the Putin regime, its allies and its country.

As Sharyn Alfonsi told CBS “60 minutes“while the US and its allies have refused to help Ukraine with boots on the ground or an air exclusion zone, they have instead waged a campaign of economic shock and admiration. Never before has an economy been cut. so big and modern so fast.of most of the world.

Daleep Singh, the U.S. national security adviser for the international economy, is a White House official who is largely credited with the design of sanctions that Putin himself has described as a “war. economic lightning “.

Within 72 hours after Russia launched its invasion on February 24, the US and its allies ousted most of Russia’s financial institutions from SWIFT, the backbone of the global banking payment system. They then froze the foreign bank accounts of dozens of Russian billionaires and began confiscating their superiors and other property.

But Alfonsi said the most dramatic strike was aimed at the Central Bank of Russia, which was cut off from the $ 300 billion it had hidden from American, European and Asian banks so that the Russian government could pay its bills if it ever returned. face sanctions.

Asked how he knows the unprecedented sanctions package he designed works, Singh told “60 Minutes” that it was clear to him why “listen to senior Russian officials describing the pain they are suffering,” and added that these officials have taken “desperate measures” to try to compensate for the punishment.

“Capital controls, for example, prevent the people of Russia from withdrawing foreign currency,” he said. “I think it ‘s a desperate move. He is [Putin’s] self-isolating their economy. Russia is now on the fast track to a Soviet standard of living in the style of the 1980s. It’s an economic abyss, and that’s the result of Putin’s election. “

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• Vladimir Putin