Russia adds Republican senator Lindsey Graham to ‘terrorists and extremists’ list

The Republican senator Lindsey Graham, a key ally of Donald Trump, has been added to a list of “terrorists and extremists” kept by Russia’s state financial monitoring agency.

Tass, the state-run news agency, first reported the move by Rosfinmonitoring, which allows authorities to freeze Russian bank accounts, though in Graham’s case is likely to be chiefly symbolic.

The agency’s list includes more than 12,000 individuals and more than 400 companies, as well as domestic and foreign terrorist entities and Russian political opposition groups, according to the website opensanctions.org.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, was reportedly added to the list in October 2022, for supposedly tolerating “Russophobia”. Its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, and other Meta employees have been banned from Russia or added to “wanted” lists.

Graham, a South Carolina senator and foreign policy hawk who has long advocated arming Ukraine against Russian invaders, has also been subject to a Russian arrest warrant, for making “Russophobic statements” during a visit to Kyiv.

“It’s difficult to imagine a greater shame for a country than having such senators,” Dmitry Peskov, the Russian government spokesperson, said at the time. Graham responded to the warrant by telling Reuters: “As usual the Russia propaganda machine is hard at work. It has been a good investment by the United States to help liberate Ukraine from Russian war criminals.” He said he would “wear the arrest warrant issued by Putin’s corrupt and immoral government as a badge of honour”.

Nonetheless, Graham is also a prominent ally of Donald Trump, the former president and prospective Republican presidential nominee who is generally held to favour Russia and Putin.

This month, Graham