Canadian authorities find Russian sanctions unacceptable

"We are aware of the decision of the Russian Federation to ban nine Canadians from entering Russia in response to the sanctions imposed by Canada on March 24. Russian sanctions against Canadian citizens, including members of the government, are unacceptable and unreasonable", - TASS quoted the message of the Canadian Foreign Ministry.

Representatives of the Foreign Ministry indicated that the Canadian side had previously imposed sanctions against the Russian Federation due to the situation around opposition leader Alexey Navalny and his supporters. The Canadian Foreign Ministry said it "remains deeply concerned about the deteriorating human rights situation in Russia", as well as that Ottawa supports the sanctions included in the Russian list and "continues to work with partners to defend democracy".

The head of the Department of Justice and Attorney General of Canada David Lametti, the head of the Federal Prison Service Anne Kelly, the Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Brenda Lucky, her deputy Brian Brennan, the head of the Department of Internal Affairs of the Office of the Prime Minister Marcy Surkes, the Minister of Regional Relations Dominique LeBlanc, Deputy Secretary of National Defense Jody Thomas, Deputy Chief of National Defense Staff Mike Rouleau, and Chief of Intelligence Scott Bishop.

We will remind that earlier the official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Maria Zakharova said that the inclusion of Canadian citizens in the sanctions list was made as a response to “illegal sanctions imposed by the Canadian government on March 24, 2021 against citizens of the Russian Federation under the far-fetched pretext of allegedly persecuting convicted of illegal acts of the citizen of Russian Federation Alexey Navalny". Canada has imposed sanctions against nine Russian citizens, including the head of the FSB Alexander Bortnikov, the first deputy head of the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation Sergei Kiriyenko, the director of the Russian Guard Viktor Zolotov, the head of the president's internal policy department Andrei Yarin, the deputy defense minister Alexey Krivoruchko and Pavel Popov, the plenipotentiary representative in the Siberian Federal District Sergey Menyailo, the heads of the Federal Penitentiary Service and the Prosecutor General's Office Alexander Kalashnikov and Igor Krasnov. Now they cannot enter Canada. Their bank accounts in this country are frozen.

Note that the Russian government has submitted to the State Duma a bill that provides for the introduction of personal sanctions against any foreigners and stateless persons. Previously, this law only applied to US citizens.