BRUSSELS, April 7 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The EU is looking to add two of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s daughters to its sanctions blacklist over Moscow’s war on Ukraine.
The move, under discussion by EU diplomats, is part of a wave of fresh measures being planned after Ukrainian and Western leaders accused the Kremlin’s forces of civilian massacres near Kyiv.
The United States on Wednesday announced it was sanctioning the two daughters, Maria Vorontsova and Katerina (or Ekaterina) Tikhonova, both in their mid-30s.
Their mother is the Russian leader’s ex-wife Lyudmila, whose divorce from Putin was announced in 2013.
The Kremlin has kept details of Putin’s daughters’ lives a closely guarded secret.
Diplomats said that EU member states hoped to sign off on the latest EU package of sanctions later this week.
According to the European Commission list of proposed individuals and entities to sanction, Vorontsova was included because she was co-owner of Nomenko, a company “involved in Russia’s largest private investment project in healthcare”.
Vorontsova, who is reputedly married to a Dutch businessman, was thus deemed to benefit from the Russian government and was involved in a sector providing it revenue.
The commission list had her sister Tikhonova included because “she currently heads the Innopraktika development initiative, funded by key Russian companies whose directors are members of the inner circle of oligarchs close to President Putin”.
She was also therefore seen to benefit from the Kremlin and be involved in providing it revenue.
The draft commission list contained a total of 217 individuals and 18 entities.
Other notable entries were: Herman Gref, the head of Russia’s biggest listed bank, Sberbank; oligarch Oleg Deripaska who owns arms factories; defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov; more members of the ultra-wealthy Rotenberg family close to Putin; and members of the administrations running separatist Russian-backed enclaves in eastern Ukraine.
The European Union has already imposed an asset freeze on Putin over the invasion of Ukraine as it tries to ratchet up pressure on the Russian president and his inner circle over the invasion of Ukraine.
The EU’s latest package of sanctions also envisions a ban on Russian coal exports and blocking Russian ships from entering European ports.
Meanwhile, additional US sanctions will include, among other things, a ban on investments in Russia and will be designed to weaken the key instruments of the Russian government, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in WASHINGTON.
“This will include a ban on all new investment in Russia, increased sanctions on financial institutions and state-owned enterprises in Russia, and sanctions on Russian government officials and their family members,” she said, adding that “these measures will degrade key instruments of Russian state power.”
Washington expects the sanctions to “impose acute and immediate economic harm on Russia.”
The United States is trying to put Russia in a situation when it will have to choose between a default or draining of its remaining foreign currency reserves, Psaki said.
“The goal is to force them to make a choice,” she said, when asked whether the US goal at this stage was to trigger a sovereign default in Russia. “Russia does not have unlimited resources – especially now, given the crippling sanctions we’ve put in place – and they are going to be forced to choose between draining remaining valuable dollar reserves <…> or default.”
When asked about whether the White House had any assessment on when a default may be expected, she replied “I don’t have an assessment of that. <…> It depends, in part, on what decisions they [the Russians] make.” — NNN-AGENCIES
