Britain has imposed sanctions on Vladimir Putin’s two adult daughters, following in the US’s footsteps in another symbolic move to pressure Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.
Katerina Tikhonova and Maria Vorontsova will be subject to an asset freeze and a travel ban, although it is not clear if either of them has ever visited the UK or if they hold assets within reach of UK officials.
The US imposed sanctions on the women on Wednesday, with a senior US official saying many of Putin’s assets are hidden with family members. There have been persistent but unconfirmed reports that Putin has fathered other daughters, but Tikhonova and Vorontsova are his only publicly acknowledged children.
Both were nominated by the UK on Friday under an emergency procedure that allows the government to impose sanctions on the basis of allies’ evidence if they think it is in the public interest to do so. The summary procedure gives the UK 56 days to find its own evidence.
The EU has also imposed sanctions on the sisters as part of a new package of measures targeting Russia’s economy, businessmen and oligarchs, according to two EU officials who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Neither of the two daughters had been included in the EU’s public sanctions list on Friday morning.
A report on the EUobserver website earlier this week, citing a draft of that EU list, claimed that the soon-to-be-announced sanctions would also affect several wives, ex-wives, sisters, stepdaughters and mothers-in-law of pro-Kremlin oligarchs .
Putin’s daughters with his former wife Lyudmila have kept a low profile in public and made no official public appearances with him as adults.
The UK sanctions designation said that Vorontsova was born in April 1985 in Leningrad, now St Petersburg, and that Tikhonova was born a year later in Dresden, where Putin worked undercover as a spy for KGB intelligence until the fall of the Soviet Union worked.
The US referred to Tikhonova as a “Tech Executive”. It said Vorontsova, who is believed to be a pediatric endocrinologist who studies the effects of hormones on the body, directs state-funded programs that “have received billions of dollars from the Kremlin for genetic research and are personally overseen by Putin.”
Tikhonova, who uses her maternal grandmother’s surname, graduated from St. Petersburg State University and Moscow State University and has master’s degrees in physics and mathematics.
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While Putin previously said they “live their own lives,” the US government said there was evidence that those around them benefited from their father’s power.
Tikhonova was previously married to Kirill Shamalov, who was sanctioned by the US in April 2018 in response to Russia’s “malicious activities around the world.” The US government said Shamalov married Tikhonova in February 2013.
“His wealth improved drastically after marriage,” the US said, citing the acquisition of a large chunk of shares in Sibur, a Russian oil and gas producer, and a $1 billion loan to the “billionaire elite.”