Putin’s daughter, Katerina Vladimirovna Tikhonova, is a technology executive whose work supports the Russian government and its defense industry, according to details in the US sanctions package announced Wednesday. His other daughter, Maria Vladimirovna Vorontsova, is leading government-funded programs that have received billions of dollars from the Kremlin for genetic research and are personally supervised by Putin, the United States has said. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register “We have reason to believe that Putin, and many of his comrades, and the oligarchs, are hiding their wealth, hiding their assets, with family members placing their assets and wealth in the US financial system. “as well as in many other parts of the world,” a senior US government official told reporters. “We believe that many of Putin’s assets are hidden from family members and that is why we are targeting them,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Reuters could not immediately contact Putin’s daughters, their representatives or the Kremlin for comment. The sanctions, announced Wednesday, also include the daughter and wife of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The United States has also banned Americans from investing in Russia and targeted Russian financial institutions and Kremlin officials in response to what President Joe Biden denounced as Russian “atrocities” in Ukraine. read more Russia has denied that it deliberately attacked civilians and said the images of corpses in Bukha, north of Kiev, were intended to justify further sanctions against Moscow. Moscow says it is involved in a “special military operation” designed to demilitarize and “demilitarize” Ukraine. Ukraine and Western governments have dismissed it as a false pretext for invading Russia. The extent of Putin’s wealth is a sensitive issue in Russia. The Kremlin last year denied that it owned a luxury Black Sea palace, according to opposition politician Alexei Navalny in a video that attracted a large YouTube audience. read more Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peshkov said in February that sanctions against Putin himself were pointless. “(Putin) is quite indifferent. The sanctions contain absurd allegations about certain assets,” Peshkov said. “The president has no assets other than what he has declared.” But US lawmakers believe otherwise. “Putin and his oligarchs are stacking their dirty money on rule of law nations by buying mansions, yachts, works of art and other high-value assets,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, who introduced legislation a few weeks ago. rewards for information leading to the seizure of assets held by sanctioned Russian oligarchs. DANCE ROCK ‘N ROLL Putin’s daughters, who the United States believes are helping him hide his fortune, have never publicly confirmed that the Russian leader is their father, and he has refused to answer questions about them. A Reuters survey from 2015 exposed the connections and influence that Katerina, an acrobatic rock and roll dancer, has on the next generation of Moscow’s elite. (For the story, see: https://reut.rs/3ubo3kR) “Katerina, 29, described herself as the wife of Kirill Shamalov, the son of Nikolai Shamalov, a longtime friend of President Putin,” the report said. “Shamalov senior is a shareholder in Bank Rossiya, which US officials have described as the personal bank of the Russian elite.” As husband and wife, Kirill and Katerina had corporate stakes worth about $ 2 billion, according to estimates given to Reuters by financial analysts. This was in addition to the other assets and assets. Putin’s eldest daughter, Maria, studied biology at St. Petersburg University and medicine at Moscow State University, according to a Reuters poll. He is also heavily involved in genetic research, which Putin has previously described as a field that “will determine the future of the world.” According to Russian and Western media reports, Maria married Dutch businessman Jorrit Joost Faassen. He pursued a biomedical career specializing in the endocrine system in 2015, as a doctoral candidate at the Endocrinology Research Center in Moscow and co-authored a book on “idiopathic retardation” in children, according to a Reuters report. Her husband worked for Gazprombank, a large lender with strong ties to the elite around Putin, the report said. There were no immediately available estimates of their assets and holdings. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Report by Nandita Bose in Washington. Edited by: Heather Timmons and Jonathan Oatis Our role models: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
