The United States announced additional sanctions targeting Russians supporting Vladimir Putin and his regime, including his two adult daughters, and stated that an international effort also broke up a Russian cybercrime operation, the Associated Press reports.
Putin’s two adult daughters, Mariya Putina and Katerina Tikhonova, are having assets accessible to US financial institutions frozen, and they will face travel restrictions. Putin is suspected of having other children, but they are not officially recognized by the Kremlin.
Also sanctioned was Konstantin Malofeyev, a Russian media mogul who helped finance disinformation campaigns during the Crimea invasion and whose outlets have been promoting Russian propaganda during the Ukraine invasion. He was targeted for attempting to circumvent the sanctions by hiring a former Fox propaganda producer and US citizen, Jack Hanick, to produce segments to be aired on US outlets. Hanick, who also worked for CNBC, is facing his own charges in federal court.
The Justice Department announced Wednesday that it has successfully disrupted the operations of a Russian troll farm run by Russia’s security force, the GRU. The botnet hijacked thousands of computers for a future disinformation and denial-of-service attacks, but the operation was discovered and stopped before it could be launched.