From left, front: Vladimir Putin’s daughter Maria with him and mother Ludmila in 2007.Photo: ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP via Getty
Russian PresidentVladimir Putin’s offstage family life is now firmly in the spotlight, thanks in part to a new wave of sanctions from the U.S. and others — aimed at two of his children.
Putin himself has already been subject to economic retaliation from Western countries amid theongoing invasion of Ukraine, which began in earnest in late February andhas killed at leasthundreds of soldiers and civilians since.
The U.S., the European Union and Group of Seven countries on Wednesdayannounced more punishmentsof Russia for the war, including some directed at the families of Putin and a few of his allies, cutting them off from any U.S. financial systems and freeing any assets they have within the U.S.
Those most recent sanctions apply to Putin’s adult children, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s wife and daughter and members of Russia’s Security Council including former President and Prime Minister of Russia Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.
“These individuals have enriched themselves at the expense of the Russian people,” the White House said in a release announcing the sanctions. “Some of them are responsible for providing the support necessary to underpin Putin’s war on Ukraine.”
The economic penalties announced Wednesday also include a full block on Russia’s largest financial institution, Sberbank, as well as Alfa Bank, a large private bank.
The Kremlin on Thursday called the move against Putin’s daughters “difficult to understand and explain.”
“Of course we consider these sanctions in themselves to be the extension of an absolutely rabid position on the imposition of restrictions,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters,per Reuters. “In any case, the ongoing line on imposing restrictions against family members speaks for itself.”
From left: Ludmila Alexandrowa Putina and Vladimir Putin in 2007.Alexander Hassenstein/Getty
In 1983, Putin — a former agent in the KGB, a Soviet intelligence agency — married Lyudmila Shkrebneva and the couple had two daughters: Mariya and Yekaterina or Katerina, also known as Masha and Katya.
Those are officially Putin’s only adult children (and therefore the targets of the recent Western sanctions), though he is rumored to have had children with other women as well.
Katerina and Mariya are in their 30s but rarely seen in public, and many details about their lives are not available or occasionally conflict in various reports.
They and others close to Putin have been accused of shielding some of his own assets. Reuterspreviously investigatedtheir possible personal wealth, citing analysts who said Katerina and her husband would have an estimated $2 billion in corporate assets. (Sanctioning Putin’s kids, in other words, could be another way to punish Putin himself.)
InsiderandReutersreport that both Mariya and Katerina attended college, though under false identities.
Mariya is thought to be living a somewhat quiet life in Moscow, where she is married with at least one child of her own, according to Reuters.
Katerina, meanwhile,reportedly embraces a more public lifestyleand was seen last year at a speaking engagement at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in Russia — though she wasnever explicitly linked with Putin at the event, Insider reports. She is also a former dancer.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine.Chris McGrath/Getty Images
The sanctions unveiled Wednesday are the latest to be directed at Russia since Putin first began his invasion Ukraine in late February.
While Russia remains in a grinding battle for control of Ukraine’s cities — and, according to mounting civilian reports and PresidentJoe Bidenhimself, engaging in “war crimes” — the sanctions have put Russia under increasinglydesperate economic conditions.
Kremlin officials have said the U.S. sanctions were likely to have little effect on Putin himself but previously said they were anact of aggression, interfering in Russia’s affairs.
With NATO forces massing in the region around Ukraine, various countries have also pledged aid or military support to the resistance. Ukrainian PresidentVolodymyr Zelenskyyhas called for peace talks — so far unsuccessful — while urging his country to fight back.
Putin insists Ukraine has historic ties to Russia and he is acting in the best security interests of his country. Zelenskyy vowed not to bend.
“Nobody is going to break us, we’re strong, we’re Ukrainians,“he told the European Unionin a speech in the early days of the fighting, adding, “Life will win over death. And light will win over darkness.”
source: people.com
