Russia sanctions Mark Zuckerberg, Vice President Kamala Harris, and 27 other Americans, indefinitely barring them from entering the country

• Russia announced a travel ban on several top US business leaders, journalists, and officials.
• The country's foreign ministry said the sanctioned people would be denied entry indefinitely.

Russia slapped a travel ban on Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and 28 other prominent Americans on Thursday.

The sanctions were imposed in retaliation for Western sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. The travel ban includes top Pentagon officials, US business leaders, and journalists, including Vice President Kamala Harris, LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky, and the ABC reporter George Stephanopoulos.

Russia's foreign ministry said the people would be denied entry into Russia on an "indefinite basis," according to an Insider translation of the ministry's press release. The ministry said it identified the people as responsible for shaping "the Russophobic agenda" in the US, according to a translation.

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The sanctions are unlikely to have any significant effect on Zuckerberg or any of the people on this list other than stopping them from visiting Russia.

Notably, the list did not include the names of top US business leaders like Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal or Google CEO Sundar Pichai, even though Twitter and YouTube, which is owned by Google, have been proactive in handling Russian misinformation.

Several of the sanctioned reporters on the list commented on the Russian travel ban on social media.

"A funny thing happened to me on the way to work today," Kevin Rothrock, a managing editor in Connecticut for the Meduza news website covering Russia, tweeted shortly after he was included on the list Thursday.

"I'm getting a lot of 'congratulations' replies to this," Mark MacKinnon, a senior international correspondent for The Globe and Mail, tweeted of the sanction against him. "But for me, it's a genuinely sad day. I loved my time living in Russia, and made a lot of friends there (though many of them have left). I always tried to report honestly about the country. I guess that was the problem."

Spokespeople for Meta and LinkedIn did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Russia sanctioned President Joe Biden last month and later announced a round of sanctions against 398 members of Congress.

Russia previously banned Zuckerberg's platforms Facebook and Instagram and dubbed them "extremist" organizations. LinkedIn has been blocked in Russian since 2017.

Translations by Oleksandr Vynogradov.