WASHINGTON: The United States blacklisted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s purported girlfriend and the tycoon owner of the second-largest estate in London Tuesday in the latest round of sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine.
Also hit with US business bans were several other oligarchs believed to be close to Putin, four officials Russia has named to administer occupied territories in Ukraine, and around two dozen high technology institutes and companies, including key state-backed electronics entities.
The US Treasury announced sanctions on Putin associate and billionaire Andrey Grigoryevich Guryev, who owns the Witanhurst estate, the second-largest estate in London after Buckingham Palace.
Guryev is the founder and former deputy chairman of PhosAgro, a major supplier to global fertilizer markets.
He and his son were hit with financial sanctions, which ban US businesses — including banks with US branches — from transactions with them, and freeze their assets under US jurisdictions.
The Treasury also blacklisted Guryev’s Caribbean-based 81-meter (267 feet) yacht Alfa Nero, which puts it at risk of seizure.
However, the Treasury said Alfa Nero “has reportedly shut off its location tracking hardware in order to avoid seizure.”
The Treasury also imposed sanctions on Alina Kabaeva, a former Olympic gymnast widely described as Putin’s girlfriend, and Natalya Popova, the wife of Kirill Dmitriev, the manager of the Russian government’s massive sovereign wealth fund.
The Treasury said Popova works for the technology firm Innopraktika, which is run by one of Putin’s daughters.
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