- Russia announced a travel ban on several top US business leaders, journalists, and officials.
- The Russian foreign ministry said the sanctioned individuals will be denied entry indefinitely.
- The travel ban is unlikely to have a significant impact on Mark Zuckerberg or others on the list.
Russia slapped a travel ban on Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and 28 other prominent Americans on Thursday.
The sanctions were imposed in retaliation for Western sanctions against Russia for its attack on Ukraine. The travel ban includes top Pentagon officials, US business leaders, and journalists, including US Vice President Kamala Harris, LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky, and ABC reporter George Stephanopoulos.
The Russian foreign ministry said the individuals will be denied entry into Russia on an “indefinite basis,” according to an Insider translation of the ministry’s press release. The ministry said they had identified the people as responsible for shaping “the Russophobic agenda” in the US, per a translation.
The sanction is unlikely to have any significant impact on Zuckerberg or any of the other individuals outside of stopping them from visiting Russia.
Notably, the sanctions’ list did not include the names of other top US business leaders like Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, or Google CEO Sundar Pichai even though Twitter and YouTube have been proactive in handling Russian misinformation.
Several of the sanctioned reporters on the list commented on the Russian travel ban on social media.
“A funny thing happened to me on the way to work today,” Kevin Rothrock, the Connecticut-based managing editor of the Meduza news website covering Russia tweeted shortly after he was included in the list on Thursday.
“I’m getting a lot of ‘congratulations’ replies to this,” tweeted Mark MacKinnon, senior international correspondent for The Globe and Mail, regarding the sanction against him. “But for me, it’s a genuinely sad day. I loved my time living in Russia, and made a lot of friends there (though many of them have left). I always tried to report honestly about the country. I guess that was the problem.”
Spokespeople for Meta and LinkedIn did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.
Russia sanctioned US President Joe Biden last month and later announced another round of sanctions against 398 members of Congress.
Russia previously banned Zuckerberg’s platforms Facebook and Instagram and dubbed them “extremist” organizations. LinkedIn has been blocked in Russian since 2017.
Translations by Oleksandr Vynogradov.