- The EU and the US are preparing to impose sanctions on Putin’s daughters, according to The Wall Street Journal.
- The US is expected to announce a new wave of sanctions on Wednesday, which the EU has yet to decide on.
- Putin rarely speaks about his two daughters, and it is not publicly known how many children he has.
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According to several reports, the European Union and the US government are preparing sanctions against two daughters of President Vladimir Putin.
The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed US officials, reported that a second round of US sanctions, including against Putin’s daughters, could be announced as early as Wednesday.
When asked about this, White House press secretary Jen Paski confirmed the timing of the announcement in a news conference on Tuesday, but did not comment on the final content.
She said the measures would target “family members” of “Russian government officials,” as well as targets like banks and state-owned companies, but didn’t say whether Putin’s family was among them.
Putin himself was sanctioned by the US shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, breaking a norm against personal sanctions against heads of state.
The EU is also considering sanctions against Putin’s daughters, The Journal reported, citing diplomats familiar with the matter. These measures are yet to be approved by EU member states, the paper reported.
Putin has two daughters from his ex-wife Ludmila Putina, but rarely talks about them. They are Katerina Tikhonovna, who became an accomplished gymnast, and Maria Vorontsova, a medical researcher.
The Kremlin has never admitted whether Putin has any other children, and few of the reported details of their lives are officially confirmed. In 2015, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied rumors that Putin had another child with Alina Kabayeva, his reported lover, Forbes Russia reported.
The WSJ did not confirm which of the children would be affected by the proposed sanctions.
It is unclear whether Tikhonovna and Voronstova have interests outside of Russia. Tikhonova married billionaire Kirill Shamalov, the son of a close friend of the president, in a union that would have valued the couple at around $2 billion, Reuters reported, in 2015. They split in 2018, Bloomberg reported.
Her holdings included a $3.7 million seaside apartment in Biarritz, France, according to Reuters. After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, activists broke into the villa – which was registered in Shamalov’s name – and said they intended to take in Ukrainian refugees there.
Vorontsova is a co-owner of Russian private healthcare investment company Nomenko, Time reported. She left her home in the Netherlands in 2014 after the crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, which killed several Dutch nationals and has long been suspected to be the work of the Kremlin.
A 2016 investigation by Russian outlet The New Times revealed that Vorontsova lived a “luxury” existence with trips abroad and yachting.