The United States is targeting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s daughters as part of a fresh round of sanctions levied after atrocities were uncovered in Bucha, Ukraine, amid the war.
A senior member of President Joe Biden’s administration confirmed the measures against Putin’s two adult daughters, in addition to Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s wife Maria and other members of Russia’s Security Council.
The sanctions, rolled out in conjunction with G-7 and European Union allies, will also ban new investments in Russia and introduce full blocking restrictions on Russian financial institutions and state-owned enterprises, such as Sberbank and Alfa-Bank, its largest private bank. Sberbank previously had dollar-clearing prohibitions imposed on it. However, there is a carve-out for the energy sector.
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“Sberbank is the main artery in the Russian financial system,” the senior administration official said of the state-owned banking and financial services company. “By itself, it holds nearly one-third of Russia’s total banking sector assets. That’s over $500 billion.”
“Without investment from our private sector, Putin will lose private sector know-how and skills that travel with investment,” the official added. “The knock-on effects to the ongoing brain drain from Russia will be profound.”
The sanctions come after the U.S. Treasury announced this week it would no longer permit Russian debt to be paid in dollars kept in U.S. banks, increasing the chances of a default.
But the administration official repeated that the measures were not designed to be “a stand-alone solution.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the U.N. Security Council this week after the discovery of a mass grave, including civilians, and evidence that Russian forces tortured captives before killing them in Bucha, outside of the capital Kyiv. He spoke to leaders amid a U.S.-led push to suspend Russia from the body.
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“Are you ready to close the U.N.?” Zelensky asked. “Do you think that the time of international law is gone? If your answer is no, then you need to act immediately.”
