Russia has banned more than 100 Australians, including mining tycoons, business leaders and dozens of journalists, from traveling to the country in retaliation for sanctions imposed following the Kremlin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
The list of 121 names, which includes billionaires, newspaper heads, CEOs, professors and military officers, is based on the 228 Australians, including then-leader Scott Morrison and current Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, banned from Russia in the April.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said banned people were part of Australia’s “Russophobic” agenda and warned that more would be added to the country’s “stop list”.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry says banned people are part of Australia’s “Russophobic” agenda (THIBAULT CAMUS / AFP / POOL / AFP via Getty Images)
“Given that the Canberra official does not intend to abandon the anti-virus course and continues to produce new sanctions, work will continue to update the Russian ‘stop list’,” he said in a statement released on Tuesday. .
Russian political expert at La Trobe University, Dr. Robert Horvath, said the “Russophobic” classification was a “lie.”
“I have repeatedly and insistently defended Russian culture against its detractors,” he said on Twitter.
“I have highlighted his most humane voices and the lessons on human rights and freedom that Russian dissidents have taught in the West.
“But in Putin ‘s twisted and Orwellian world,’ Russophobia ‘means criticizing his kleptocracy, repression, and genocidal war.
“It means drawing attention to the brave Russians who oppose it. It means pointing out that Russian culture has more than its totalitarian despotism.”
His fellow academic Matthew Sussex, of the Center for Strategic and Defense Studies at the National University of Australia, joked that he was “humbled” to have been included on the list among other “worthy recipients”.
Other prominent names include the editor-in-chief of The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, The Daily Telegraph, West Australian and Australian Financial Review; mining magnates Gina Rinehart and Andrew Forrest; and the board chairs Nine, Seven West Media, SBS, ABC and News Corp Australia.
The list also includes more than a dozen senior Army, Navy and Air Force officers, Atlassian founder and prominent billionaire Mike Cannon-Brooks, South Australian Prime Minister Peter Malinauskas. and a handful of new federal Labor ministers and deputy ministers who were not yet. sanctioned.
9News.com.au journalist Richard Wood has also been added to the “stop list”.
Australia has sanctioned hundreds of Russians, including oligarchs, business leaders and their families, along with propagandists and “troll farms”, as well as dozens of businesses.
It is part of an international Western effort to fight Russia’s war against Ukraine for months.
The new government has yet to announce further sanctions, but Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has consistently condemned the Kremlin’s “unilateral, illegal and immoral” attack on Ukraine as outrage.
“This is something that Russia has to pay for its actions. It’s as simple as that,” he said last month, the day after he was sworn in.
“These actions go against democratic values, against national sovereignty, against the rule of law, against the Charter of the United Nations itself, and must be unequivocally condemned. And I do it again now.”
Children receive classes in explosives in Ukraine
The sanctions are accompanied by extensive arms supply campaigns, including the delivery of Australian Bushmaster armored vehicles after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a public statement in his speech to the Australian Parliament.
The United States on Wednesday announced more than $ 1 billion in military aid to Ukraine, including 18 howitzers, 36,000 howitzer cartridges and two coastal harpoon defense systems.