Who are the daughters of Vladimir Putin who were sanctioned by the United States and Europe?

Putin does not speak publicly about his family but, according to the Kremlin, he has two daughters with his first wife, Lyudmila Shkrebneva, whom he divorced in 2013, who have largely remained out of public life, to the point that many Russians do not know what they are like.

There is a lot of secrecy around the daughters of the Russian president, in fact many international media say that they have changed their names to go unnoticed and lead a life far from the spotlight.

But that did not prevent Mariya Vladimirovna Putina, 36, and Katerina Tikhonova, 35, from being hit by US and European sanctions because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The decision made excludes all of Putin's close relatives from the US financial system and freeze any assets they have in the country.

According to Forbes magazine, Mariya Putina is a co-owner of Nomeko, a company that is involved in the construction of a cancer center on the outskirts of St. Petersburg, and a participant in the largest Russian private investment project in health.

Other media, such as Reuters and the newspaper El Comercio, say she is a graduate of the Department of Fundamental Medicine at Moscow State University and is an endocrinologist, according to official documents.

The eldest daughter of the president was born in Leningrad, what is now known as St. Petersburg, on April 28, 1985.

For her part, Katerina Tikhonova is a Russian acrobatic rock and roll dancer and executive, director of two initiatives at Moscow State University: the National Intellectual Development Foundation (NIDF) and the National Intellectual Reserve Center. It is known that he was born in Dresden on August 31, 1986, when his father was embarking on his first mission as a spy.

Several international media said she was married from 2013 to 2018 to Kiril Shamalov, a billionaire son of oligarch Nikolai Shamalov, who is a friend of Putin's and a member of his closest circle.

Reuters commented in a note that at the wedding “there were guards behind every corner, (they) didn't let anyone near the celebration,” said a member of the resort's staff, which has a luxurious spa complex. “But we knew it was Kirill and Katerina, Putin's daughter, celebrating the marriage.”

In a public appearance Putin referred to his daughters as saying: “I have never discussed exactly where my daughters work, what they do, and I don't try to do it now, for many reasons, including a security issue.”

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