Paul Massaro, a senior adviser at the US Helsinki Commission who has been counselling members of Congress on Russia sanctions, said it was not always clear to US officials what assets would be affected.

“It means that the sanctions that we hit these people with are largely going to be glorified press releases, because without knowing what these assets are, we can’t freeze them,” he said.

Loading

Still, even if the United States has only a limited picture of Putin’s wealth, sanctions are worthwhile “just to freeze what we can, freeze what we know, and let people know that these people aren’t welcome in our system,” Massaro said.

One European diplomat emphasised the symbolic value of the effort, describing it as “a politically important signal.”

By being added to the US Treasury Department’s “Specially Designated Nationals” list, Putin joins a small but notorious subgroup of heads of state, including Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, Kim Jong Un of North Korea and Bashar Assad of Syria. Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, was also subject to the sanctions.

“We are united with our international allies and partners to ensure Russia pays a severe economic and diplomatic price for its further invasion of Ukraine,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement on Friday.

Estimates of what Putin may secretly be worth vary widely. One of the most sensational claims came from Bill Browder, a US-born financier who was banned from Russia in 2005 after clashing with oligarchs there. He testified before Congress in 2017 that he believed Putin’s wealth could total $US200 billion, an extraordinary sum that would have made him the richest man in the world at the time.

Anders Aslund, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and the author of the 2019 book Russia’s Crony Capitalism, pegged the Russian president’s wealth about $US125 billion. He argued that much of it could be hidden in a web of offshore havens held by Putin’s allies, friends and relatives.

On rare occasions, people near Putin’s inner circle have spoken publicly about his wealth. In 2010, Sergei Kolesnikov, who said he was a business associate of a Putin ally, wrote an open letter to Russia’s then president, Dmitry Medvedev, asserting that Putin was building an enormous estate on the Black Sea coast that would come to be known as Putin’s Palace. It had cost more than $US1 billion gathered through “corruption, bribery and theft,” Kolesnikov wrote in his letter, which he sent after leaving Russia.

“When people say he’s worth such and such, what does that mean? Are they really saying that he’s going to cash in and retire to Saint-Tropez?”

Nate Sibley, a researcher at the Hudson Institute’s Kleptocracy Initiative

The huge project features a movie theatre, a hookah lounge and a pole-dancing stage, according to a report and documentary released last year by jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny and his associates. Several oligarchs close to Putin have been involved at various times, including Shamalov’s father. Last year, billionaire Arkady Rotenberg, a childhood friend of the Russian president, stepped forward to claim that he owned the property and was developing it into a hotel and apartments.

Loading

The Kremlin insists that Putin is a man of simple tastes, regularly distributing images of him roughing it in the Siberian woods, and denies that he owns any palaces.

“Putin has no need for luxury,” state television host Dmitri Kiselyov said on his show early last year after Navalny’s video investigation into the estate.

Leaks of financial information have also offered tantalising clues about Putin’s proximity to riches, even if he does not appear in the data himself. The Panama Papers, a trove of files from an offshore law firm that were exposed in 2016, revealed the secret wealth of many close to him, including Sergei Roldugin, a cellist and longtime friend who took in more than $US8 million a year, according to documents submitted to a Swiss bank. (He had previously told The New York Times, “I don’t have millions.” )

Last year, a new leak of files from companies specialising in offshore tax shelters, called the Pandora Papers, showed that the woman said to be Putin’s lover had acquired the apartment in Monaco. It was one of a number of assets she had accumulated that were worth an estimated $US100 million.

Loading

But ultimately, said Nate Sibley, a researcher at the Hudson Institute’s Kleptocracy Initiative, Putin does not need to own a vast fortune because he is an autocrat who controls everything.

“When people say he’s worth such and such, what does that mean?” he asked. “Are they really saying that he’s going to cash in and retire to Saint-Tropez?”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

The Business Briefing newsletter delivers major stories, exclusive coverage and expert opinion. Sign up to get it every weekday morning.