Russia hit the political leadership in Australia and New Zealand on Thursday with restrictions on personal entry, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
According to the information, 228 Australian government officials and members of Parliament, including Prime Minister Scott Morrison, and 130 New Zealand officials, including Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, have been sanctioned.
The Russian diplomatic ministry stressed that this reflected the unfriendly steps taken by Canberra and Wellington.
However, Alexander Darchev, director of the department’s North American Department, said it would soon respond to recent sanctions on the US financial sector and US officials.
As he said, these would not necessarily be mirror actions, but rather penalties that would be felt in any case.
“We were not the beginning of the cycle of sanctions. It is clear that Washington is responsible for the destruction of Russian-US relations,” he added. Below it is the Darshev line.
Darchev said that the Russian economy avoided the blow, despite the public theft by the government of US President Joe Biden, which is working to take out the White House and the US State Department, referring to the blocking of some Russian foreign exchange reserves in US banks.
He stated that he would isolate himself from the United States, and with it the “vassal states” that he believed were subservient to Washington, and trying to maintain American hegemony at any cost, ignoring geopolitical realities.