Report: Putin to Sanction Top U.S. Senators

[$@rJen]

Report: Putin to Sanction Top U.S. Senators
Russian President is reportedly planning to sanction American lawmakers in retaliation for similar U.S. sanctions on Russians.
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By Elad Benari
First Publish: 3/18/2014, 4:14 AM

Obama and Putin (archive)
Reuters
Russia continues to be unfazed by the world’s sanctions against it and, in fact, Russian President Vladimir Putin is planning some sanctions of his own, according to a report Monday in The Daily Beast.

The report said that Putin is set to ban several U.S. senators and officials from visiting Russia.

Putin’s sanctions would be a response to President Barack Obama’s slapping sanctions on two top aides to Putin and nine other people linked to Russia's military incursion into Crimea.

On Monday, Obama announced the new sanctions and made clear the United States was prepared to impose more if Russia formally annexed Crimea in response to a weekend referendum in the region.

"Going forward, we can calibrate our response based on whether Russia chooses to escalate or to de-escalate the situation," Obama said, according to Reuters.

Obama’s announcement came several hours after the European Union imposed sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, on 21 officials from Russia and Ukraine linked to the unrest in Ukraine.

According to The Daily Beast, Putin is expected to release his “retaliation sanctions list” as early as Tuesday. The list, still being finalized, will include top Obama administration officials and high profile U.S. senators, in an effort to roughly mirror the U.S. sanctions against Russian officials and lawmakers.

At the top of the list in Congress, diplomatic sources told the site, is Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, who recently co-authored a resolution criticizing Russia’s invasion of Crimea.

Durbin’s inclusion on Putin’s list would mirror Obama’s naming of Valentina Matvienko, the head of the upper chamber of the Russian Duma. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are not expected to be on the Russian sanctions list.

Durbin told The Daily Beast in a statement Monday, "My Lithuanian-born mother would be proud her son made Vladimir Putin’s American enemies list."

Sen. John McCain from Arizona, who traveled to Kiev last weekend to meet with Ukrainian leaders, told The Daily Beast that he expects to be on the list and is happy about it.

“You think I’m not going to be on it?” McCain said. “I would be honored to be on that list.”

McCain said he would not be impacted financially by being subject to a visa ban and asset freeze in the Russian Federation.

“I guess I’m going to have to try to withdraw my money from my secret account in St. Petersburg,” he joked.

Putin has repeatedly ignored Obama’s calls on him to end his incursion into Ukraine. On Monday, Putin released an official statement recognizing Crimea as a "sovereign and independent state", after a controversial referendum vote in the peninsula showed overwhelming support for Moscow over Ukraine.

On Sunday night, hours after the referendum, Obama phoned Putin and warned him that the results of the referendum in Crimea would never be recognized by the United States or its allies.

Republicans have criticized Obama for his handling of the Ukraine crisis, saying that his “feckless” policy encouraged Putin to invade Ukraine.

 

[senheiser]

mccain should be on the list for sure

 

[Beidou2020]

McCain should be taken out by Russian secret service agents. This guy is a terrorist masquerading as a politician.

Go Russia!

Kick out western NGOs while your at it. That will hurt the Yankees far more.

 

[vostok]

fresh anecdote: American astronaut on the ISS is afraid of break of US-Russian relations more than all.

 

[Dron.ru]

 

[LordTyrannus]

HAHAHAHA

 

[Star Wars]

Russian Foreign Ministry vows retaliatory steps against EU - News - World - The Voice of Russia: News, Breaking news, Politics, Economics, Business, Russia, International current events, Expert opinion, podcasts, Video


Russia sharply criticised the European Union on Tuesday for imposing sanctions on Russian officials and lawmakers involved in efforts to make Crimea part of Russia, and said it will retaliate.

"Attempts to speak to Russia in the language of force and threaten Russian citizens with sanctions will lead nowhere," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

"The adoption of restrictive measures is not our choice; however, it is clear that the imposition of sanctions against us will not go without an adequate response from the Russian side."

All Russian MPs volunteer to be subject to US, EU sanctions

The Russian State Duma, the lower house of parliament, has unanimously passed a statement in which they volunteered to be subject to the US and EU sanctions imposed on individual Russian officials and lawmakers due to the referendum in Crimea.

Read more: Western sanctions against Russian officials arouse irony and sarcasm - Kremlin

"We suggest that Mr. Obama [US President Barack Obama] and EU bureaucrats put all of the Duma deputies who voted for Crimea's accession to Russia and for this resolution on the 'black list' of persons subject to the US and EU sanctions," the statement says.

Russian blacklisted MP is happy to be on US sanctions list

Leader of the Just Russia party Sergei Mironov said he was proud to be on the US sanctions list. "It is with pride that I have found myself on the black list, this means they have noticed my stance on Crimea. It is funny that they will freeze accounts. I want to respond by re-phrasing the phrase from the Golden Calf [satirical novel] - 'Keep looking, Shura, keep looking.' No accounts exists, let them introduce sanctions as much as they want," Mironov told reporters on Tuesday.

The statement Russia's State Duma is to pass today on Crimea could be a response to the sanctions, Mironov said.

"We are very inter-dependable in the world" and for now it is too early to say certain things on how Russia could react, though this is wanted very much, Mironov said. As to mass media reports on the possibility of the Crimean referendum scenario in Transdniestria, one should not jump ahead, Mironov said.

"We will react to facts, including legal facts, though the example of Crimea is a very inspiring example for many Russian people," Mironov said in the State Duma.

EU unveils list of sanctioned Russian, Crimean officials

The European Union has unveiled its list of sanctioned Russians and Crimeans whom it implicated in organizing the crucial referendum on Crimea’s independence. The EU version of the list, duplicated by the US, includes 13 Russians and eight people from Crimea and specifically targets political officials.

Italy’s foreign chief Federica Mogherini said earlier the EU sanctions would be in force for six months. This came after today’s meeting of 28 EU ministers and officials in Brussels. According to Mogherini, the sanctions will include visa bans and financial restrictions. However they will not affect representatives of Russia’s leadership, journalists and employees of nongovernmental structures.

Read more: US, EU sanctions against Russia are big mistake - French politician

The European Union took a cautious approach to imposing sanctions against Moscow, while leaving open the possibility of adding harsher economic measures when EU leaders meet later this week.

The 21 named officials are part of an original list that EU had drawn up last week that ran at about 120-130 people, Reuters says. It has since been shortened.

Among them are Crimea's Prime Minister Sergei Aksyonov, Deputy Prime Minister Rustam Temirgaliev, Parliament Chairman Vladimir Konstantinov, Crimea's Navy Commander Deniz Berezovsky, as well as Russia's Security and Defense Committee Chairman Viktor Ozerov, Chairman of the Committee on Constitutional Law Andrei Klishas, and MP Nikolai Ryzhkov, to name a few.

EU sanctions require unanimity among all 28 member states. There are several countries, including Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Spain and Portugal, that have reservations about the decision. However, there are some EU members, like Poland, that reportedly pushed for expanding the list on Monday but failed to get enough support.

Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the damage inflicted by possible sanctions concerning the situation in Ukraine will be “mutual”. While the Russian Foreign Ministry said that Moscow will respond to possible sanctions, not necessarily mirroring them.

The EU and US sanctions follow the Crimean Parliament’s adoption of the resolution on the independence of Crimea on Monday, which declares the Black Sea peninsula an independent, sovereign state and appeals to join Russia as a republic.
Read more: Russian Foreign Ministry vows retaliatory steps against EU - News - World - The Voice of Russia: News, Breaking news, Politics, Economics, Business, Russia, International current events, Expert opinion, podcasts, Video