Malinauskas was the only elected official on the latest list,although 228 Australian politicians and officials were banned from Russia in April,including Anthony Albanese and the then-prime minister Scott Morrison,inretaliation for Canberra’s sanctions.
Speaking at theFinancial Times Hydrogen Summit just hours afterhe was slapped with sanctions by the Kremlin,Forrest said he would wear his sanction as a badge of honour.
Forrest said he had no regrets about calling out Russia over the invasion of Ukraine. “I don’t take it lightly,I take it seriously but I would say to other leaders in the room that you are not worth talking to unless you have been sanctioned.“
He accused Western politicians of “propping up the Kremlin” by relying on natural gas imports from Russia instead of ramping up the production of alternative energy capabilities.
“Natural gas is Putin’s power,” the West Australian billionaire told theFinancial Times Hydrogen Summit on Friday morning (AEST). “Keep buying it and keep propping up the Kremlin.”
Other newly sanctioned business leaders,including Atlassian’s Mike Cannon-Brookes,Rio Tinto chief executive Simon Trott and Seven West media chairman Kerry Stokes have not yet commented on their new status.
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The Sydney Morning Herald’s editor Bevan Shields said that while he wasn’t planning a holiday in Russia any time soon,the ban might affect others on the list.
“If telling the truth about Russian President Vladimir Putin,an accused war criminal,and his brutal invasion of Ukraine leads to sanctions,I am sure journalists will take that as evidence that we are doing our jobs well,” Shields said.
The Australian’sEurope correspondent Jacquelin Magnay,who appeared on the list alongside Rob Harris,Europe correspondent forThe Age andThe Sydney Morning Herald,said she “would have been truly upset not to have been sanctioned”.
ABC radio host Patricia Karvelas said waking at 3.30am to news she was sanctioned was like a “hallucination reality dreamscape”.
Other media figures on the sanctions list included Nine’s CEO Mike Sneesby,News Corp’s co-chair Lachlan Murdoch,ABC’s chair Ita Buttrose,The Age‘s editor Gay Alcorn,The Australian Financial Review’s editor-in-chief Michael Sutchbury,Herald-Sun columnist Andrew Bolt,the ABC’s Stan Grant and Nine’s Liz Hayes.
TheHerald’snewly sanctioned leader writer Geoff Winestock said the list is “just another sign of the Putin inferiority complex”. Winestock,who lived and worked in Moscow for seven years,said most people included on the Australian sanctions list had never been to Russia and had no intention of visiting in the future.
“I hope democracy returns to Russia,but I’m not holding my breath,” Winestock continued.
A spokesperson from Nine Entertainment Group said the sanctioning of company employees “won’t change our journalism and reporting on the events occurring in Ukraine”.
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