US sanctions more Russian 'elites' in retaliation for Ukraine war

WASHINGTON

The US continued its sanctions campaign against prominent Russians on Friday, including three immediate family members of Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

Peskov was placed on the US blacklist on March 3. His wife, Tatiana Aleksandrovna Navka, and his two adult children Nikolay Peskov, and Elizaveta Dmitriyevna Peskova, have all been added to the sanctions list.

The Treasury Department said Peskov's family members "live luxurious lifestyles that are incongruous with Peskov’s civil servant salary and are likely built on the ill-gotten wealth of Peskov’s connections to Putin."

Navka is alleged to be at the helm of a "property empire worth more than $10 million," the department said in a statement.

“Treasury continues to hold Russian officials to account for enabling Putin’s unjustified and unprovoked war,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said. “Today’s actions also further isolate the severely damaged Russian economy by prohibiting trade in products that are key to the economic and financial interests of all Russian elites.”

The department also re-designated Russian businessman Viktor Feliksovich Vekselberg, who was previously sanctioned, and identified as blocked property his private plane, and a Cook Islands-flagged yacht he owns named Tango.

The management board of Russia's VTB bank was also sanctioned, as were 12 members of the Russian State Duma, including its Chairman and Russian Security Council member Vyacheslav Victorovich Volodin.

Like Vekselberg, Volodin was already under US sanctions.