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Australia on Russia’s ‘unfriendly states’ list

Vladimir Putin’s government has approved a list of “unfriendly states” that includes all European Union countries, the US and Australia, the Interfax news agency reports.

Meanwhile, officials in Moscow have offered Ukrainians “escape routes” to Russia and its close ally Belarus.

That has drawn cries of outrage from Ukraine, where officials say a bread factory had been hit by an air strike in the latest Russian bombardment.

The offer preceeded the third round of peace talks between Russian and Ukrainian officials.

Media reports just after 7am Tuesday suggested negotiations had not resulted in any major agreement.

Ukraine’s negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak said some small progress had been made on agreeing to logistics for the evacuation of civilians.

Australia on ‘unfriendly’ list

Apart from countries, the hostile list also includes foreign territories that, according to officials in Moscow, have committed hostile actions against the Russian government, its companies and citizens.

According to Interfax, the list was signed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and is part of the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation issued on March 5 on the temporary procedure for fulfilling obligations with certain foreign creditors.

The list includes the 27 member states of the EU that have approved strong sanctions against Russia following its invasion of Ukraine on February 24.

Other countries to figure in the list are: Australia, Albania, Andorra, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Micronesia, Monaco, New Zealand, Norway, the United Kingdom, South Korea, San Marino, North Macedonia, Singapore, Taiwan, Montenegro, Switzerland, Japan and Ukraine.

Until now, the list only included the US and the Czech Republic.

In practical terms, being on the list simply means that Russian citizens, companies, or the government itself can only pay debts to any individual or company in roubles.

The Russian rouble has been recording big losses for days and on Monday it also fell significantly against the US dollar and the euro.

More attacks on civilians

The bodies of at least 13 civilians were recovered from rubble after a factory in the town of Makariv in the Kyiv region was hit, local emergency services said.

Five people were rescued of the 30 believed to have been there at the time.

Reuters was not immediately able to verify the reported attack.

-with agencies

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