Russia permanently banned 25 American citizens from visiting the country, including actors Sean Penn and Ben Stiller, the Kremlin announced on Monday, according to a report from Politico.
A Russian Foreign Ministry statement announcing the bans also includes business people and high-ranking officials such as U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, a member of the EU-U.S. Trade and Technology Council.
The Kremlin said that the list was "in response to the ever-expanding personal sanctions by the Biden administration against Russian citizens."
Although the Russian Foreign Ministry statement did not explain how the list of those to be banned was put together, Penn and Stiller have traveled to Ukraine and held meetings with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy after the invasion, Fortune reported.
When Stiller visited in June, he said to the Ukrainian leader, "You're my hero."
Sanctions declared by the U.S. and its allies over the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine in February have frozen more than $30 billion worth of Russian assets as of the end of June, according to Fortune.
The U.S. Treasury last month announced an additional round of measures against "Kremlin-connected elites." This included Phosagro PJSC's billionaire owner Andrey Guryev and Alina Kabaeva, head of a pro-Kremlin media group and a former lawmaker who has a "close relationship" with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
There have also been additional appeals for the West to enlarge the number of targets who are sanctioned, Fortune reported.
One such appeal came from jailed opposition leader Alexey Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, which has put out a list of more than 6,000 people it says should be blacklisted as enablers of Putin's regime.
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.