Moscow added Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to a list of sanctioned persons issued by Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday.

The ministry said, the measure comes in response to an “unprecedented anti-Russian campaign” led by Kishida’s administration.

Moscow has so far blacklisted 63 officials and public figures, with the country’s foreign minister, minister of defense, finance and justice ministers among them.

The foreign ministry accused Tokyo of “unacceptable rhetoric towards the Russian Federation, including defamation and direct threats,” which are “repeated by public figures, experts and representatives of the Japanese media, and completely subjected to the Western bias” towards the country.

In March, amid worsening relations, Russia ended an arrangement dating back to 1991 that allowed Japanese citizens to visit the Kuril Islands without a visa and has broken off talks with Japan on formally ending the Second World War, citing Tokyo’s “openly unfriendly” conduct.

The two states never formally concluded a peace treaty after WWII, due to the dispute over the four southernmost islands in the Kuril chain, which Japan calls its “Northern Territories.”
-RT