On Tuesday, the United States blacklisted the alleged lover of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the businessman who owns the second-largest estate in London in the most recent wave of sanctions related to the invasion of Ukraine. Several other oligarchs linked to Putin, four Russian administrators of Ukraine’s occupied regions, and about two dozen high-tech institutions and businesses, including significant state-backed electronics firms, were also barred from doing business in the United States.
The Witanhurst estate, second only to Buckingham Palace in size, is owned by billionaire Andrey Grigoryevich Guryev, a close friend of Vladimir Putin. Guryev is the founder and former vice chairman of PhosAgro, a major supplier to the world’s fertilizer markets. Financial penalties were imposed on him and his son, including a prohibition on doing business with US entities (including banks with US branches) and the freezing of their assets under US jurisdiction.
The Treasury sanctioned Alina Kabaeva, a former Olympic gymnast who is often referred to as Putin’s girlfriend, and Natalya Popova, the wife of Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the Russian government’s sizable sovereign wealth fund. Popova works for Innopraktika, a technological firm owned by one of Putin’s daughters, according to the Treasury.
Sanctions were also imposed on Viktor Filippovich Rashnikov, one of Russia’s largest taxpayers, and two of his MMK companies, one of the world’s largest steel producers. In a joint action, the State Department sanctioned oligarchs ‘running massive revenue-generating companies,’ including Dmitry Aleksandrovich Pumpyanskiy, Andrey Igorevich Melnichenko, and Alexander Anatolevich Ponomarenko. Visa restrictions were among the penalties imposed. According to the State Department, a list of over 900 Russian officials, 31 unnamed non-Russian officials who supported Russia’s occupation of Crimea, and nearly 900 other individuals have been added.
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