MOSCOW, April 14 (RIA Novosti) – US National Security Advisor Tom Donilon will become the first senior US official who will feel the consequences of the US sanctions under the Magnitsky Act, Alexei Pushkov, the head of the State Duma Committee on Foreign Affairs, said on Sunday.
Donilon is scheduled to arrive in Moscow on Monday to bring a message from US President Barack Obama, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday. It will be a wide-ranging message on the prospects of bilateral US-Russian relations, he said, citing US officials.
"Obama's aide Donilon will be the first to feel tomorrow the consequences of the blacklists introduced by the United States,” Pushkov wrote on Twitter Sunday adding that Donilon is arriving in Russia at “bad times.”
Russia published on Saturday its own list of US officials banned from Russia in response to the US list of Russian officials facing visa and financial sanctions under the Magnitsky Act.
Like the US list, the Russian list comprises 18 names.
Four are listed as having been connected with the US infamous Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba, which has seen numerous allegations of abuse and torture by prisoners and rights groups. The rest of the US officials on the list are mostly described as prosecutors and special agents, and are accused of having violated the rights of Russians abroad.
The US list, which lists Russians that Washington deems complicit in human rights abuses, was published on Friday. The Russians listed will be unable to enter the US and any assets they own there will be frozen.
