Meet Katerina Tikhonova And Mariya Putina: The Two Daughters Of Russian President Putin Sanctioned By US

New Delhi: The US announced fresh set of sanctions against Russia where two adult daughters of President Vladimir Putin – Katerina Tikhonova And Mariya Putina – were targeted. Asked why the US was targeting Putin’s daughters, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the US thought they could be in control of some of their father’s assets. “We have seen a pattern over time that President Putin and Russian oligarchs stash assets and resources in the bank accounts of their family members and this was an effort to get at those assets and that’s why these individuals were sanctioned,” Psaki said.Also Read - Biden Calls For War Crimes Trial Against Putin For Bucha Killings; US Pushes To Suspend Russia From UN Human Rights Body

Besides Katerina Tikhonova And Mariya Putina, the US also issued sanctions against Russian 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.

• Putin’s two adult daughters – Katerina Tikhonova and Maria Putina – are with his former wife Lyudmila Shkrebneva. Mariya Putina is also eldest of the two sanctioned daughters.
• Mariya Putina has been reported living under the assumed name Maria Vorontsova. Tikhonova and Vorontsova, in their 30’s, are rarely seen in public and almost never mentioned by their father. The Kremlin has only ever identified them by their first names.
• Katerina Tikhonova is director of Innopraktika, a $1.7 billion project to create a science centre at Moscow State University, as well as deputy director of the Institute for Mathematical Research of Complex Systems at the same institution.
• Katerina Tikhonova was married to gas company executive Kirill Shamalov, son of the co-owner of Rossiya Bank, between 2013 and 2018.
• The White House said that Mariya Putina and Katerina Tikhonova were being added to the sanctions list “for being the adult children of Putin, a person whose property and interests in property are blocked”.
• Mariya Putina, the announcement went on, “lead state-funded programs that have received billions of dollars from the Kremlin toward genetics research and are personally overseen by Putin”.
• Mariya Putina spent much of her early life in Dresden, East Germany, prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall, where her father served as a KGB agent.
• Mariya Putina reportedly played the violin as a child and went on to study biology at St Petersburg State University and medicine at Moscow State University. She is married to Dutch businessman Jorrit Faassen and the couple reportedly now live.
• Mariya Putina is married to Dutch businessman Jorrit Faassen and the couple reportedly now live in Moscow.

(With inputs from Agencies)