Biden Administration Targets Putin's Children in New Round of Sanctions

By Abby Liebing April 6, 2022 at 10:30am

In a new round of sanctions, the U.S. and its allies are banning new investment in Russia and sanctioning Russian President Vladimir Putin’s adult daughters and other Russian elites.

These sanctions come after new brutality in Ukraine was discovered, Axios reported.

When Russian troops pulled out of Bucha, a suburb of Kyiv, dozens of civilian bodies were found, shot to death and some with their hands tied behind their backs, CNBC News reported.

In light of this, a senior Biden administration official said that the new sanctions imposed were a necessary response to the “sickening brutality in Bucha” and are “dramatically escalating the financial shock,” according to Axios.

The European Union and America’s G7 allies — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom — have joined the U.S. in the new sanctions, which are meant to deal another economic blow to Russia.

Banning new investment in Russia and sanctioning the Russian central bank is a clear economic strategy.

Coordinating with the EU and the G7, the bans is meant to “methodically eject Russia from the international economic order,” an official said, Axios reported.

But sanctioning Putin’s daughters and other Russian elites is likely meant to specifically damage Putin’s personal finances and those of his inner circle.

The administration official said that each new round of sanctions is ultimately aimed at making Putin more desperate and to “create a downward spiral that accelerates the more that Putin escalates.”

Do you think sanctions will eventually pressure Putin into withdrawing?

Putin’s daughters, Katerina Tikhonovna and Maria Putina, are in their 30s, have very rarely been seen in public and have almost never been mentioned by their father.

“We believe that many of Putin’s assets are hidden with family members, and that’s why we’re targeting them,” a senior administration official told CNBC News.

In addition to Putin’s daughters, the U.S. will also sanction Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s wife and daughter and the former President and Prime Minister of Russia Dmitry Medvedev, along with Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.

“We are targeting the Kremlin, the political and economic elites supporting Putin’s war in Ukraine,” said Josep Borrell, the EU foreign policy chief, the Wall Street Journal reported.

However, as the administration official said, none of these sanctions are permanent, and whether they will be lifted in the future or not depends on Putin’s actions.

“The only aspect that’s permanent are the lives that he’s taken away, and he can never bring those back,” the administration official said, Axios reported.

Meanwhile, the EU is also working on a new package of sanctions to ban coal imports from Russia and also restrict Russian vessels and roads transports to access Europe, Axios reported.

CNBC News also reported that the White House also indicated that the Treasury Department will soon announce several major Russian state enterprises that will be put under full sanctions.

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