Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s wife and daughter were also sanctioned.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s two adult daughters — Maria and Katerina — are included in the latest round of sanctions on Russia the U.S. announced on Wednesday.
“The sickening brutality in Bucha has made tragically clear the despicable nature of the Putin regime, and today, in alignment with G-7 allies and partners, we’re intensifying the most severe sanctions ever levied on a major economy,” a Biden senior administration official told reporters on Wednesday.
The new round of sanctions includes a ban on all new investments in Russia, increased “full-blocking” sanctions on two major financial institutions in Russia — Sberbank and Alfa Bank — and sanctions on Russian government officials and their family members — including Putin’s daughters.
“Today, we’re sanctioning Putin’s adult children, [Russian Foreign] Minister [Sergey] Lavrov’s wife and his daughter and members of Russia’s Security Council,” the official said.
The official said the U.S. has now fully blocked more than two-thirds of the Russian banking sector, which held about $1.4 trillion in assets before the invasion.
The announcement follows President Joe Biden on Monday saying he was seeking further sanctions in response to apparent war crimes in Bucha — but as National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan warned this week, the White House acknowledges that further sanctions against Russia will not change Putin’s behavior overnight.
“Sanctions are intended to impose costs so Russia can’t carry on these grotesque acts without paying a severe price for it,” Sullivan said during Monday’s briefing.
“We don’t expect that that shift in behavior will be caused by sanctions overnight or in a week. It will take time to grind down the elements of Russian power within the Russian economy, to hit their industrial base hard, to hit the sources of revenue that have propped up this war and propped up the kleptocracy in Russia,” he added.