Maria Sharapova will soon be an outlaw unless she flies to Moscow to comply with Vladimir Putin’s new law requiring all 10 million Russians with dual citizenship to register with the Kremlin.
The 6-foot-2 blonde, who played her third round match in the US Open on Friday, won’t have to meet the law’s Oct. 4 deadline because she is out of the country, but she’ll have to register on the next visit to her homeland.
The law was enacted after Russia invaded Crimea and the US imposed sanctions on Putin and some of his cronies.
“This is Putin’s way of telling the expats, ‘We’re keeping track of you even if you aren’t here. You can’t escape us,’ ” said one former Russian. “It’s the first step in getting Russians living abroad to pay more taxes.”
It is doubtful that Sharapova, and all the wealthy Russian hockey players in the NHL, and all the Russian fashion models in New York, will want to be interrogated by the Kremlin about their assets and bank accounts.
“This will convince a lot of Russians to give up their dual citizenship,” said my source. “They will dump their Russian passports.”
Sharapova, who lives in Florida, has played for the Russian Olympic team and was a prominent supporter of her homeland at the Winter Olympics in Sochi. Without a Russian passport, she could only go home by applying for a visa.
Anne Vyalitsyna — better known as just Anne V — is in the same boat as Sharapova. The Russian swimsuit model, who dated Adam Levine and Mets pitcher Matt Harvey, proudly showed her American passport on her Instagram account in March.
One Russian who happily complied was Kira Dikhtyar, the model who appeared with Naomi Campbell on the TV show “The Face” last spring. Moscow paparazzi recently followed her as she trotted in high heels to the registrar’s office.