Also affected by the US business bans are several other oligarchs believed to be close to the Russian president, four officials appointed by Russia to manage occupied territories in Ukraine and about a dozen high-tech institutes and companies, including major electronics players supported by the state. “As innocent people suffer from Russia’s illegal war of aggression, Putin’s allies have enriched themselves and funded lavish lifestyles,” said Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. “The Treasury Department will use every tool at our disposal to ensure that Russian elites and Kremlin officials are held accountable for their complicity in a war that has cost countless lives.” The US Treasury announced sanctions on:
Alina Kabaeva, a former Olympic athlete widely described as Putin’s girlfriend. Putin’s associate and billionaire Andrey Grigoryevich Guryev, who owns the Witanhurst estate, the second largest estate in London after Buckingham Palace. Guryev is the founder and former deputy chairman of PhosAgro, a major supplier to global fertilizer markets. He and his son were hit with economic sanctions, which bar US businesses – including banks with US branches – from doing business with them and freeze their assets under US jurisdiction. The Treasury also blacklisted Guryev’s 81-meter (267-foot) Caribbean-based yacht Alfa Nero, which puts it at risk of confiscation. But the Treasury said Alfa Nero “allegedly switched off its location tracking hardware to avoid seizure”. Natalya Popova, wife of Kirill Dmitriev, the manager of the Russian government’s massive sovereign wealth fund. The US Treasury Department said Popova works for the technology company Innopraktika, which is run by one of Putin’s daughters. Viktor Filippovich Rashnikov, one of Russia’s biggest taxpayers, and two subsidiaries of his MMK, which is among the world’s biggest steel producers, were also hit with sanctions.
In a joint action, the State Department imposed sanctions, including visa restrictions, on oligarchs who “run huge revenue-generating companies,” including Dmitry Alexandrovich Pubyansky, Andrei Igorevich Melnichenko, and Alexander Anatolyevich Ponomarenko. In addition, nearly 900 Russian officials were placed on the US visa ban list, as were 31 unnamed non-Russian officials who supported Russia’s occupation of Crimea, the State Department said. “The United States is taking additional steps to ensure that the Kremlin and its forces feel the compounding effects of our response to the Kremlin’s mindless war of aggression,” said Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.