In this interview with the BBC's Andrew Marr, he insists the BBC correspondent will be allowed back into the country, where she has reported for years, once UK visas have been issued to Russian reporters.
A Russian working as a reporter for the Tass state news agency left the UK in 2019 after he was denied leave to remain. The Russian government did not make a fuss at the time.
The UK foreign office says Russian journalists continue to work freely in the UK providing they act within the law.
Sarah Rainsford was told she'd been barred from Russia by the FSB security service in August and was labelled a "security threat" - a label that she and the BBC deny.
The move comes during an unprecedented assault on rights and freedoms in Russia, where critics of the Kremlin are increasingly being labelled as "hostile agents" of the West.