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11 INTERNATIONAL NEWS 17.2.2022 THE new US sanctions triggered by Russian's latest actions in Ukraine in- cluded targets that in the past have gone untouched: the family mem- bers of those in Russian President Vladimir Putin's inner circle. By designating the sons of two pow- erful players close to the Russian President, the Biden administration sent a clear signal that its target list for individual sanctions extends be- yond public officials and financiers as part of a new effort to shut down pathways for top Putin associates to shield their wealth by giving it to fam- ily members. Denis Bortnikov and Vladimir Kiri- yenko, both designated for individual sanctions by the Treasury Depart- ment on Tuesday, hold their own prominent positions in Russian busi- ness. But both will now have any US-held assets frozen and be barred from deal- ing with any US persons solely be- cause their fathers serve as Putin's do- mestic intelligence chief and as one of Putin's closest advisers, respectively. "They share in the corrupt gains of the Kremlin policies and should share in the pain as well," Biden said Tues- day. Sanctioning the sons of two of Putin's closest officials doesn't carry the im- pact of other measures announced on Tuesday, most notably imposing sanc- tions on two of Russia's most promi- nent banks and reducing the country's ability to access Western finance. But they are meant to unsettle a very personal element of the Russian economy, one driven by the reality that Putin's inner circle and the fami- ly members tied to them represent an extraordinary consolidation of wealth and power inside the country. "This is unprecedented because we are extending the reach of US sanc- tions to prevent the elites close to Putin from using their kids to hide as- sets, evade costs, and squander the re- sources of the Russian people," a sen- ior Biden administration official told CNN. "This is a new approach." It is clear, officials say, that the open- ing salvo of that approach is unlikely to be the last. "Other Russian elites and their fam- ily members are now on notice that additional actions could be taken on them as well," Daleep Singh, the dep- uty national security adviser who is leading the White House effort on sanctions, told reporters. In response to the US sanctions an- nounced Tuesday, the Russian Am- bassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov was quoted on the Rus- sian Embassy Facebook page early Wednesday, Moscow time. He said, "It is hard to imagine that there is a person in Washington who expects Russia to revise its foreign policy under a threat of restrictions. I don't remember a single day when our country lived without any restrictions from the Western world. We learned how to work in such conditions. And not only survive, but also develop our state." While Biden administration officials say they've seen no indication Putin plans to de-escalate, the individual sanctions provide a window into the new elements being weighed, ranging from export controls to the most ag- gressive financial sanctions ever de- ployed. The sanctions are aimed at "power- ful Russians in Putin's inner circle be- lieved to be participating in the Rus- sian regime's kleptocracy and their family members," according to the Treasury Department. Denis Bortnikov is the son of Alek- sandr Bortnikov, the powerful head of the Federal Security Service, Russia's domestic intelligence service known as the FSB. The elder Bortnikov, already subject to sanctions in March of last year, was re-designated for sanctions in the new round. Vladimir Kiriyenko is the son of Ser- gei Kiriyenko, the former prime min- ister and current first deputy chief of staff of the presidential office who is viewed by US officials as "Putin's do- mestic policy curator." The elder Kiri- yenko, also sanctioned in 2021, was also re-designated for sanctions on Tuesday. The re-designations were necessary to create the legal pathway to tar- get their sons for designation, which freezes all property and interests in property in the US, or in possession or control of a US citizen. The two sons currently hold promi- nent roles of their own - Bortnikov as deputy president of VTB Bank, one of Russia's largest financial institutions, and Kiriyenko as the recently installed CEO of VK Group, which serves as the parent company of the Russian social media company VK, which calls itself "the largest European social network." A third sanctioned individual, Petr Fradkov, serves as the CEO of Promsvyazbank, the military bank also targeted for sanctions on Tues- day. But he, too, carries a key famil- ial tie to the upper echelons of Putin's orbit. Fradkov is the son of Mikhail Frad- kov, an ex-prime minister of Russia and the former chief of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, or SVR. The elder Fradkov was targeted for sanctions by the US in 2018. Administration officials view shield- ing wealth through family members as a strategy deployed in the past by sanctioned Russian oligarchs and viewed as likely for the array of Rus- sian officials already designated for sanctions over the course of the last several years. US intelligence officials have revealed that President Joe Biden's administra- tion has informed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of intelligence assessing that Russia is preparing to conduct a full-scale invasion of the neighboring country within the next 36 hours. "e President of Ukraine has been warned Russia will highly likely begin an invasion within 48 hours based on U.S. intelligence," the U.S. official with direct knowledge said on Tuesday. "Additionally," the US official added, "reporting from aircraft observers indi- cates Russia violated Ukrainian airspace earlier today, flying possible reconnais- sance aircraft for a short period over Ukraine." A source close to Zelenskyy's govern- ment also confirmed that such a warn- ing was received. e Pentagon's assessment includes Russian airstrikes, cruise missiles and ground invasion, according to the US intelligence official. e information was confirmed by a second U.S. intelligence official, who emphasised the comprehensive nature of the military operation the Pentagon anticipated from Russia. e official told Newsweek that the invasion will include not only a push from the pro-Moscow rebel-held Don- bas region in the east, where addition- al Russian units were sent Monday as peacekeepers, but also a major thrust toward the capital Kyiv from the north- ern border with Belarus, where Russian troops recently extended joint exercises with their ally. e second U.S. official said that the operation would likely occur at night- time and include be preempted by cyber attacks, but both officials maintained that Russia's plans could change based on daily developments. Shortly after the media was made aware of these U.S. assessments, the websites for Ukraine's Defense Minis- try, Foreign Ministry and other institu- tions abruptly went offline in what sig- naled a potential sweeping cyber attack, which would add to a series of apparent cyber assaults that the White House has publicly blamed on Moscow. Some media also reported Monday after obtaining an FBI document that U.S. law enforcement has warned the U.S. private sector of a heightened po- tential of Russian state-sponsored cyber attacks against the United States. Moscow has denied engaging in any hostile cyber activity and has accused Washington of exaggerating the likeli- hood of a conflict erupting over Ukraine, which has been at war for eight years with two Russia-aligned breakaway re- publics in Donbas granted recognition Monday by Russian President Vladimir Putin in a move he argued was nec- essary to protect the self-proclaimed states from Ukrainian aggression. No country has yet followed suit and U.S. and Ukrainian officials have reject- ed the move as part of a pre-orches- trated plot to justify the deployment of Russian troops into the insurgent re- gion and a potential larger-scale effort toward other parts of Ukraine. A Ukrainian serviceman keeps watch at a position on the front line with Russia- backed separatists near the town of Schastia, near the eastern rebel-held Ukraine city of Luhansk US warns of full-scale Russian invasion within 36 hours Families of Putin's inner circle targeted in US sanctions against Russia

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