MOSCOW: Moscow said on Saturday that Washington had dealt a severe blow to relations by barring 18 Russians from the United States over alleged human rights abuses, and in retaliation it banned 18 Americans from entering Russia.
US President Barack Obama's administration had on Friday issued a list of 18 people subject to visa bans and asset freezes in the United States under the Magnitsky Act legislation passed by Congress late last year.
"Under pressure from Russophobic members of the US Congress, a powerful blow has been dealt to bilateral relations and mutual trust," a Russian Foreign Ministry statement said.
The mutual blacklisting could dim hopes voiced publicly by both sides of rehabilitating a relationship increasingly strained since President Vladimir Putin returned to the Kremlin last May.
Obama's national security adviser is to have talks on Monday with senior officials in Moscow the highest-level face-to-face contact since the US president began a second term in January
The Foreign Ministry listed 18 Americans subject to visa bans and asset freezes under a retaliatory law Putin signed in December that allowed such steps against Americans deemed to have violated the human rights of Russians abroad. That law also banned the adoption of Russian children by Americans.
The Americans barred from Russia include two officials from President George W. Bush's administration who the ministry said were linked to the "legalisation and application of torture" David Addington, a former chief of staff of Vice President Dick Cheney, and John Choon Yoo, a former Justice Department lawyer.
The list includes two ex-commanders of the US military detention centres at the Guantanamo Bay US Naval Base, whose detainees have included Russian citizens.
As counsel to Cheney, Addington pressed for more coercive interrogation tactics while Yoo issued a legal opinion that said federal laws on the use of torture did not apply to interrogations conducted overseas.
Geoffrey Miller, a commander at Guantanamo in the Bush era, was sent to Iraq to advise on interrogation tactics and was an adviser on interrogations at Abu Ghraib prison. Jeffrey Harbeson was a Guantanamo commander during Obama's first term.
The list includes law enforcement authorities involved in the prosecution of Viktor Bout, a Russian arms trader serving a 25-year US prison term after his arrest in Thailand, and of Konstantin Yaroshenko, who was detained in Liberia and sentenced to 20 years on drug-trafficking charges in the United States.
"The war of lists is not our choice, but we have no right not to respond to blatant blackmail," the ministry statement said.
"It is high time for politicians in Washington to finally realise that it is futile to build relations with a country like Russia in a spirit of mentoring and outright diktat."
Putin, in power as president or prime minister since 2000, has frequently complained about what he says is the use by the United States of human rights concerns as a pretext for meddling in the affairs of Russia and other nations.
The US list includes 16 people linked to the case of Russian whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky, whose death in jail in 2009 underscored the risks of challenging the Russian state and deepened US concern for civil rights and the rule of law in Russia.
THE MAGNITSKY EFFECT
Putin has said that Magnitsky's death at age 37 was caused by heart failure. But the Kremlin's own human rights council has aired suspicions that Magnitsky was beaten to death and he had repeatedly said he was denied medical treatment in jail.
Former colleagues say Magnitsky was jailed on tax evasion charges by the same Russian officials he had accused of stealing $230 million from the state through fraudulent tax rebates.
Nobody has been held criminally responsible for Magnitsky's death, and he is now being tried posthumously in a Moscow court despite the outrage of relatives and lawyers who say the trial is illegal and inhuman.
Putin and other Russian officials say the United States is in no position to criticise other nations on human rights.
The Russian list includes Americans "involved in the legalisation and application of torture and the indefinite detention at the Guantanamo special prison, and in arrests and abductions of Russian citizens in third countries".
The exchange of lists increased tension before the visit by White House national security adviser Tom Donilon, who is expected to gauge Russia's appetite for better ties and the chances of progress on the divisive issue of missile defence.
A US decision to scale down plans for a European missile shield could ease Russia's stated concerns that the system will weaken its security, but Moscow's response so far has been cautious.
Putin's spokesman said on Friday the US list would have a "very negative" effect but also signalled Russia wanted to limit the damage, saying relations were multifaceted and there remained "many prospects for development
The fact that neither nation included any current high-ranking official on its list could help keep the issue separate from others, though both governments have indicated some names were kept secret for national security reasons.
A senior Russian lawmaker said on Friday he believed Obama had kept the list to a "minimum" to try not to cause a crisis.
Relations between the former Cold War foes improved during Obama's first-term push to "reset" ties with Russia, but they soured again after Putin started his march back to the presidency in 2011. He was elected in March 2012.
Putin accused the United States of encouraging opposition protests against him, and Russia has cracked down on Western-funded non-governmental organisations since he took office.
The countries are also at odds over the war in Syria and what Putin's foes say is a clampdown by him on dissent through restrictive legislation and politically charged trials.
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