U.S. Announces Sanctions Against Putin’s Daughters

The United States has announced multiple new sanctions, including on Russia President Vladimir Putin’s daughters, in response to reports of new war crimes committed by the Russian military during its invasion of Ukraine.

The “U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) took major steps to degrade the economy of the Russian Federation in response to Russia’s continued brutal war against Ukraine and atrocities against Ukrainian citizens,” the Treasury Department said in a statement. “Treasury is imposing full blocking sanctions on Sberbank, Russia’s largest state-owned bank, and Alfa-Bank, Russia’s largest private bank. Treasury is also targeting family members of President Vladimir Putin (Putin) and Foreign Minster Sergey Lavrov (Lavrov), as well as Russian Security Council members who are complicit in the war against Ukraine. In addition, the President is issuing a new Executive Order today, which bans new investment in the Russian Federation and the provision of certain services to any person located in the Russian Federation by U.S. persons, wherever located.”

“Russia’s military forces have committed heinous atrocities in Ukraine and the global community must hold them to account,” Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen said. “Today we are taking additional steps to cut off Russia from international markets in response to Putin’s continued brutality. This serious action, including fully blocking Russia’s largest bank and banning new investment in Russia, will further restrict Putin’s ability to fund and supply his war.”

The “sanctions against Katerina Tikhonova and Maria Vorontsova, also known as Mariya Putina, both of whom are widely considered to be Vladimir Putin’s daughters from his first marriage. They also targeted Maria Lavrova, the wife of Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and their adult child, Ekaterina Lavrova,” according to The Washington Post.

A senior administration official told reporters in a phone conference the United States is targeting the family members of top Russian officials because they are believed to be using their families to protect their assets from other sanctions.

“We have reason to believe that Putin and many of his cronies and the oligarchs hide their wealth, hide their assets with family members, that place their assets and their wealth in the U.S. financial system but also many other parts of the world. And that’s why the coordination — the coordinated effort to freeze their assets and seize their physical luxury goods — their cars, their yachts, their homes, et cetera — that’s why it’s so important that we act together,” the official said.