The daughters of Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin are set to feel the sting of sanctions as the US rolls out a wave of new measures amid fears the despot is squirreling away cash through his family.
President Biden has also targeted Russian banks and elites among a new package of sanctions announced today.
The announcement included the Russian President’s adult daughters, Katerina Tikhonovna and Maria Putina, who are both in their 30s and rarely seen in public.
CNBC quoted the senior official saying: "We believe that many of Putin’s assets are hidden with family members, and that’s why we’re targeting them."
Putin is said to be one of the world’s richest men, but it has been long suspected that his fortune his stashed among family members and associates.
His £200billion riches come from taking 50 per cent of every rouble made in Russia by the country’s oligarchs.
Putin - who is notoriously private about his family life - has let slip a few details about the lives of his daughters, who he had with ex-wife Lyudmilla Putina.
Putin announced that he had separated from his daughters' mother, Lyudmilla Putina, after almost 30 years of marriage in a staged interview with a Russian journalist in 2013.
Katerina, 35, and Maria, 36 have never been officially confirmed as Putin's children - but live relatively normal lifestyles.
So secretive is Putin, that Katerina was only publicly named by a Russian media outlet as Vladimir Putin's younger daughter in 2015.
At the time, he refused to confirm or deny she was his daughter at a press conference.
"I have never been specific about the workplaces of my daughters and their line of work, and I'm not going to do so now. For many reasons, including security considerations," he said.
But he confirmed that his daughters were living in Moscow where they are "making the first steps in their careers, and doing well."
"They are not involved in business or politics," he added, revealing that they were both fluent in three European languages.
"I'm a proud father," he said. "My daughters have never been star-struck children. They never craved the limelight.
They are rarely photographed and avoid public events, in favour of jobs in business and medicine.
In 2020, Putin told Russian media how the country's coronavirus vaccine had been tested on one of his daughters - but did not reveal who.
He disclosed that he is a grandfather five years ago in an interview with Oliver Stone, the Hollywood director.
"Are you a grandfather yet?" Stone asked Putin during an interview. "Yes," replied Mr Putin.
"Are you a good grandfather, do you play with them in the garden?" Stone then probes. "Very seldom, unfortunately," Mr Putin replies, with a seemingly sad smile.
Putin did not say how many grandchildren he has, but according to media reports, Maria, 36, is married to Jorrit Joost Faassen, a Dutch businessman, and they have a child.
She followed a career in biomedicine, and became a genetics researcher, with a specialism in dwarfism.
In 2013 Katerina, 35 married Kirill Shamalov, a Russian billionaire who owns a large stake in a gas and petrochemical company, but the pair have now split.
Last week, a group of pro-Ukrainian protesters broke into a multimillion beach-front French villa reportedly belonging to Shamalov, in a bid to turn it into a shelter for refugees.
"I am proud of them," Mr Putin told Stone. "They are not into big business or politics. They are into science and education."
Katerina previously competed in acrobatic rock'n'roll dance competitions and headed up a mathematical research centre at Moscow State University.
In 2013, she published her PhD dissertation studying technology that could help astronauts to keep their balance in changing gravity - possibly linked to her love of dancing.
In 2021, she helped launch a Russian version of the video-sharing app TikTok, which has recently stopped working in the country.
The Yappy app was produced with the support of the Innopraktika foundation run by Katerina.
In another interview with Stone, Mr Putin says he almost refused to stand for president because of what he saw as a risk to his children.
"I didn't know how long I could do it for because at any moment they could come along and say I was dismissed. And I could think about one thing only: where I would hide my children," he said.
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