Moscow-Sana
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov announced that Moscow may expand the list of Americans banned from entering Russian territory in response to Washington's sanctions against the "North Stream 2" project.
Russia Today website quoted Ryabkov as saying in an interview with Interfax today that the response to US sanctions will be formulated and may be in the form of expanding lists of persons banned from entering Russia, noting that it was on the people who were more active in enforcing the sanctions on "North Stream 2" and other Sanctions initiatives do not hope that they will travel to Russia freely as available to the average American citizen.
Ryabkov added that imposing various restrictions on our citizens and entities under false pretenses and illegally still continues unfortunately and we cannot exclude the continuation of this in the next year, stressing that Russia will respond in a balanced manner and without any damage reflected on it so that the other side feels that its actions will not remain unanswered.
And Ryabkov said that Moscow usually does not reveal the names of people who prevent them from entering Russia and that they will not cross the border and will not know about their prevention except when submitting an application for a Russian visa, pointing out that Moscow will not rush to take measures to respond to the US sanctions.
Last Friday, US President Donald Trump signed the defense budget for 2020 and includes allocating funds to "confront" Russia in various fields, including imposing sanctions on those involved in implementing gas transportation projects.
It is noteworthy that the "North Nile Stream 2" project includes building two gas pipelines with a total capacity of 55 billion cubic meters of gas annually through the Baltic Sea and territorial waters or the exclusive economic regions of Russia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Germany.
