Russia Lists US, Czech Republic as 'Unfriendly States'

On Friday, Russia officially designated the United States and the Czech Republic as "unfriendly states".

The Russian government released a decree signed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin which was accompanied by a list of "unfriendly states" that "have carried out unfriendly actions" against the country. The list includes the US and the Czech Republic.

Moscow pointed out that the Czech embassy will be allowed to employ no more than 19 Russian nationals and the US embassy none at all.

On his part, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that Moscow remained ready for dialogue, state news agency TASS reported.

On April, Russian foreign ministry published a blacklist of eight EU nationals who were banned from entering the country.

The blacklist included:

• President of the European Parliament David Sassoli
• Berlin’s chief prosecutor Jorg Raupach
• Chairman of Latvia’s National Electronic Media Council Ivars Abolins
• Director of the Latvian State Language Center Maris Baltins
• Jacques Maire, a member of the French delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
• Asa Scott, Head of the CBRN Protection and Security Division at the Swedish Defense Research Agency
• Ilmar Tomusk, Director General of the Language Inspectorate, Estonia
• Vera Jourova, Vice President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency