Russia Bans Washington Post Reporter and 4 Other British Citizens in Retaliation for Anti-Russia Rhetoric

(Central News Agency, Moscow, 2nd, Combined Foreign Reports) The Russian Foreign Ministry's official website announced late on Tuesday a ban on five British citizens from entering the country, including Washington Post reporter Catherine Belton and UK i Paper journalist Richard Holmes, in retaliation for anti-Russian rhetoric by British officials and military aid to Ukraine. According to Reuters, Catherine Belton is an investigative correspondent covering Russian affairs for the Washington Post and has previously reported on Russia for the Financial Times and Reuters. Richard Holmes is an award-winning investigative journalist who has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the highest honor in American journalism, and currently serves as a security affairs reporter for the UK's i Paper. The Russian Foreign Ministry stated that the entry ban is in response to "provocative anti-Russian rhetoric by British officials, the dissemination of false information about Russia, and the London authorities' provision of weapons to the Kyiv regime." Other British citizens on the ban list include Alexander Browder, a contributor to the UK think tank Henry Jackson Society; Alice Laugher, CEO of the humanitarian manpower company Committed to Good; and Richard Westbury, Chairman of its parent company, Chelsea Group. Since Russia's occupation of Ukraine's Crimea in 2014, the UK has been one of the countries imposing sanctions, including entry bans, on Russia. After Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, related sanctions were further expanded, and Moscow has also implemented retaliatory measures, including entry bans, against the UK. (Editor: Zhang Mingxuan) June 3, 2025