Moscow Hushed EU Blacklist as Confidential, Brussels Leaked It to Press

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Moscow did not want to publish its blacklist of European Union citizens banned from entering Russia.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Moscow did not want to publish its blacklist of European Union citizens banned from entering Russia so as not to create a huge scandal, but the European Union created a campaign to publish the names on it, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday.

"We simply handed our partners in the European Union information that we also have a sanction list and that we didn’t want to create a scandal," Lavrov said during a joint press conference with Italian Foreign Minister Paola Gentiloni in Moscow.

Russia did not want to take a "bad example" from the European Union and "create a loud campaign" by announcing all 89 of the bloc's politicians, diplomats and military experts forbidden from travelling to Russia, Lavrov said.

Brussels had asked Moscow to hand it the blacklist confidentially and how it ended up in the mass media is a breach in etiquette, Lavrov added.

The top Russian diplomat said that the European Commission had asked for the blacklist of EU citizens banned from entering Russia, saying it was "for our confidential information so that Brussels could inform those individuals in the list."

"We handed over the list under the European Union’s request on a confidential basis and it immediately began leaking it to the press and the European Union, which usually doesn’t comment on leaks, commented on it with exuberance," Lavrov said.

A number of the blacklisted EU politicians, including British, Polish, Swedish and German officials, lashed out at the Kremlin soon after the news broke last Wednesday.

Relations between Russia and the West have hit post-Cold War lows in the wake of the Ukrainian conflict that erupted in April 2014. Amid disputes over Russia's role in the conflict, the European Union along with the United States and other allied countries have imposed travel bans on certain Russian individuals.

Speaking at Monday's press conference, Lavrov said Moscow adopted the same approach and introduced a similar list "in regards to a lesser amount of citizens" from EU member states.