The US on Wednesday announced sanctions targeting Vladimir Putin's two adult daughters and said it was toughening penalties against Russian banks in retaliation for "war crimes" in Ukraine. Mariya Putina and Katerina Tikhonova are daughters Putin had with former Aeroflot flight attendant Lyudmila Putina, reports the Wall Street Journal; that marriage ended in 2013. The Journal notes "the two women have kept such a low profile that many Russians don't know what they look like." In addition to the women, the US is targeting Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin; the wife and children of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov; and members of Russia's Security Council, including Dmitry Medvedev, a former president and prime minister.
The penalties cut off all of Putin's close family members from the US financial system and freeze any assets they hold in the United States, reports the AP. The moves against Sberbank and Alfa Bank prohibit assets from touching the US financial system and bar Americans from doing business with those institutions. Meanwhile, the EU is set to put in place an embargo on coal as soon as Wednesday. It would be the first EU sanctions targeting Russia's lucrative energy industry. EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said energy was key to Russia's war coffers. "A billion euro is what we pay Putin every day for the energy he provides us since the beginning of the war. We have given him 35 billion euro. Compare that to the one billion that we have given to the Ukraine in arms and weapons," Borrell said.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the coal ban is worth $4.4 billion per year and that the EU has already started working on additional sanctions, including on oil imports. She didn't mention natural gas, with consensus among the 27 EU countries on targeting the fuel used to generate electricity and heat homes difficult to secure amid opposition from gas-dependent members like Germany, the bloc's largest economy. Separately, the Treasury Department moved Tuesday to block any Russian government debt payments with US dollars from accounts at US financial institutions, making it harder for Russia to meet its financial obligations.
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