The United Kingdom sanctioned the daughters of Vladimir Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov

The UK announced sanctions on Friday against the daughters of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, attacking the “lavish train of life of the near-Kremlin circle,” in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Katerina Tikhonova and Maria Vorontsova, Putin's daughters, and Yekaterina Vinokurova, Lavrov's daughter, are now banned from entering the United Kingdom, where their assets will be frozen, the British Foreign Ministry said. The measure is in addition to similar measures taken by the United States and the European Union.

For its part, the United Kingdom had also sanctioned Polina Kovaleva, daughter of Lavrov's long-standing alleged mistress.

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.

According to Forbes magazine, Maria Vorontsova is a co-owner of Nomeko, a company 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.

Ensuring that all the sanctions decided so far will provoke an economic crisis in Russia unprecedented since the fall of the Soviet Union, the head of British diplomacy considered that more must be approved.

“At the G7, we are working with our partners to end Russian energy consumption and further hit Putin's ability to finance his illegal and unjustified invasion of Ukraine,” said Liz Truss, quoted in the statement.

“Together, we are tightening the nuts on Russia's war machine, cutting off Putin's sources of money,” he added.

The United Kingdom has sanctioned more than 1,200 individuals and companies - including 76 oligarchs - since the Russian military offensive began on 24 February.

(With information from AFP)

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