Russia imposed sanctions against 18 Britons. Historians are among them

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia imposed sanctions against 18 British citizens. They will be banned from entering the country.

The Russian Foreign Ministry stated that the sanctions were imposed because of London’s “confrontational course”, its efforts to “demonize” Russia and transfer weapons to Ukraine.

The British Deputy Defense Minister James Cartledge, Deputy Chief of Defense Staff Charles Walker, Deputy National Security Adviser to the British Prime Minister Sarah McIntosh, Commander of the Undersea Forces Simon Asquith, Head of the National Cyber ​​Force Timothy David Neil-Hopes, Special Representative of the Prime Minister were included in the sanctions list. on the Western Balkans, Stuart Pich. Members of the House of Lords of the British Parliament Daniel Hannan, Michael Ashcroft and Ray Collins also fell under the restrictions.

Humanities scholars, mainly historians and political scientists, representatives of several universities – Norman Davis, Timothy Garton Ash, Roy Ellison and Robert Johnson from the University of Oxford, as well as David Aboulafia from the University of Cambridge, Orlando Figes from the University of London, Graham Robertson are included in the sanctioned list from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, James Walton from Harvard University and James Scherr from the International Center for Security Studies located in Estonia.

All these scientists in one way or another spoke in support of Ukraine. Timothy Garton Ash is particularly known for his research on the modern history of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, Norman Davis is the author of the well-known monograph “History of Europe”, which has been translated into Russian, Orlando Figes is a researcher of Russia, author of the books “Natasha’s Dance” (about Russian culture) and “Whisperers” (about Stalin’s repressions).

Earlier on Monday, it also became known that Rosfinmonitoring included the press secretary of Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, Andy Stone, on the list of extremists and terrorists. In November last year, he was declared wanted and arrested in absentia.

On March 11, 2022, the Investigative Committee of Russia opened a criminal case against Meta under the article about facilitating terrorism – due to the company’s decision not to block Ukrainian users for posts calling for the “death of Russian invaders”. Stone, as a press secretary, announced the decision.

• At the end of March 2022, the Meta company was recognized as extremist in Russia, and its activities were banned. It is also included in the Russian list of organizations involved in extremism or terrorism maintained by Rosfinmonitoring. Social networks Facebook and Instagram were blocked shortly after the beginning of Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine. However, Russian clients continue to use these networks with the help of VPN anonymizers.