Russia released a list of nearly 600 Canadian citizens, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who are banned from entering the country “permanently.”
Along with Trudeau, other names appear such as the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mélanie Joly; Defense Minister Anita Anand; or the Minister of Justice, David Lametti.
The list, released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, includes other ministers, advisers, senators, provincial prime ministers and even former parliamentarians.
Moscow has defended that it is convinced of the need to maintain “respectful and good-neighbourly” relations, and stressed that the sanctions have been taken “involuntarily” and “exclusively in response to hostile actions by Canadian leaders.”
“Russia seeks mutually respectful and good-neighbourly relations with the Canadian people, calling on the Ottawa authorities to abandon the Russophobic course that deprives the country of foreign policy independence and does not meet its national interests,” the Foreign Ministry said. Russian Foreign.
Canadian authorities on Wednesday announced a new list of sanctions against Moscow, this time against a total of 203 people accused of “complicity” in Russia’s attempted annexation of the Ukrainian breakaway territories of Donetsk and Lugansk.
The Canadian government sanctioned 11 senior officials and 192 members of the councils of the self-proclaimed republics for being “complicit in the Russian regime’s ongoing violations of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.”
