While you were asleep: US targets Putin’s daughters with fresh sanctions, Motlanthe says Russia should be condemned

Not much is known about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s daughters, Katerina Tikhonova and Maria Vorontsova, but on Wednesday the US government hit the pair with new sanctions to target Putin’s personal assets.

Officials in Washington believe much of Putin’s assets are hidden with family members and in an effort to stifle the war in Ukraine, the US Treasury Department implemented the sanctions against Putin’s daughters with the hope they might be successful where other sanctions have failed to stop Russia’s onslaught thus far.

According to AFP, Tikhonova is “a tech executive whose work supports… the Russian defence industry” while Vorontsova heads state-funded genetics research programs “personally overseen by Putin.”

But little is known about the two women, neither of which Putin has acknowledged as being his daughters publicly, simply referring to them as “women.” The Kremlin has done its best to keep Putin’s private life out of the public gaze with very few photographs of Tikhonova and Vorontsova in existence.

Meanwhile, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Russia should be expelled from the Group of 20 major economies forum and the US would boycott any meeting where Russian officials showed up.

Since 2008, the G20, of which South Africa is a member, has been instrumental in serving as a key international forum for issues ranging from Covid-19 relief funds to cross-border debt and other issues.

Yellen told lawmakers in the US Congress that the invasion of Ukraine and the killing of civilians in Bucha city “are reprehensible, represent an unacceptable affront to the rules-based global order, and will have enormous economic repercussions in Ukraine and beyond.”

But it might be difficult for the US to get its wish as the bloc is also made up of China, India, and Saudi Arabia who have all been reluctant to condemn Russia’s actions while SA’s foreign policy stance has been to remain neutral on the matter.

Meanwhile, former president Kgalema Motlanthe believes the war in Ukraine “should be condemned.” Speaking during an online forum, Motlanthe said the war was a no-win situation for either country and that “Russians themselves sit with a war they didn’t approve of.”

Motlanthe has cut a different line from that of the SA government and by and large the ANC, who have carefully chosen specific language when explaining its decisions and continued friendly relations with Russia.

A month ago President Cyril Ramaphosa had to justify South Africa’s abstention from voting on a UN resolution condemning Russia and demanding the full withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine.