An Olympic gold-medal-winning skater married to Putin's spokesperson is the latest Russian sports star slapped with sanctions
Tatiana Navka, who won ice-dancing gold at the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics, is the wife of Vladimir Putin's spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov.
Getty/Pascal Le Segretain
- The former Russian ice dancer and Olympic gold medalist Tatiana Navka has been sanctioned by the US.
- Navka, who won gold at Turin in 2006, is the wife of Vladimir Putin's spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov.
- Navka once dressed as a Holocaust victim for a skating performance on Russian television.
A former Russian figure skater who once dressed as Holocaust victim for a routine has been sanctioned by United States over her links to the Kremlin.
Tatiana Navka, who won ice-dancing gold at the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics, is the wife of Vladimir Putin's spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov.
Peskov was targeted by the US on March 3, and sanctions have now been issued to Navka and Peskov's two adult children, Nikolay Peskov and Elizaveta Dmitriyevna Peskova.
The US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Controls said Friday: "Today, OFAC is designating three of Peskov's family members, all of whom 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.
"Peskov's wife, Tatiana Aleksandrovna Navka (Navka), has a property empire worth more than $10 million. Her real estate includes property in an elite Moscow suburb where Putin also lives, another multimillion-dollar apartment in Moscow given to her by the GoR, and an apartment in Ukraine's Crimean peninsula, which Russia has occupied since 2014," using an abbreviation for the government of Russia.
The children's came under Executive Order 14024, which prohibits them from engaging in any transaction or transferring assets with anyone in the US.
"Treasury continues to hold Russian officials to account for enabling Putin's unjustified and unprovoked war," said Janet Yellen, the treasury secretary. "Today's actions also further isolates the severely damaged Russian economy by prohibiting trade in products that are key to the economic and financial interests of all Russian elites."
Navka sparked outrage in 2016 when she performed a routine on Russian state television while dressed as a concentration-camp prisoner.
Performing on a celebrity skating show, she and the actor Andrei Burkovsky wore striped uniforms featuring yellow Star of David badges, seemingly imitating the uniforms worn by Jewish people in concentration camps during the Holocaust.
Navka said the routine was based on the Oscar-winning film "Life Is Beautiful."
The film focuses on a Jewish family in a concentration camp, with the father of the family pretending to his son that their imprisonment is just a game to distract him from the reality of the situation.
"Definitely watch this! One of my favourite numbers!" Navka wrote on Instagram alongside photographs from the performance.
"Our children should know and remember that terrible time."