U.S. Sanctions Putin’s Son-in-Law and Oligarchs Close to the Kremlin

The U.S. on Friday imposed a sweeping new set of sanctions against seven high-profile Russian businessmen with ties to Vladimir Putin and the 12 companies they control. “Russian oligarchs and elites who profit from this corrupt system will no longer be insulated from the consequences of their government’s destabilizing activities,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement. The sanction targets include oligarch Kirill Shamalov, who married Putin’s daughter in 2014; Oleg Deripaska, a senior Russian official and billionaire linked to former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort; and Suleiman Kerimov, who allegedly brought millions of euros into France in suitcases. The administration has also targeted 17 Russian officials working for either the government or state-owned companies, including Alexei Miller, chairman of Gazprom, and Andrei Kostin, head of state-owned bank VTB, which has been described as Putin’s personal piggy bank by some watchdogs.