-
A Russian investigation has revealed that Putin has two sons with former gymnast Alina Kabaeva.
-
According to The Dossier Center, they live an isolated life on an estate near Valdai.
-
Putin has long tried to hide his private life and keep the identity of his children secret.
Russian President Vladimir Putin secretly has two sons who are being raised in seclusion and luxury, Russian media report.
The report came from The Dossier Center, a research group in Russia, where the media is heavily repressed.
Business Insider was unable to verify the report itself.
It says the children are with Alina Kabaeva, a retired gymnast with whom Putin is rumored to have had a relationship.
According to the report, the boys’ names are Ivan and Vladimir Jr.
They are said to live in an upscale residential area, shielded from the public and even from contact with other children.
There have long been rumors that Putin… have children with Kabaevabut the report marks the first time their identities and details about their lives have been made public.
The Russian president keeps details of his private life closely guarded, but it is known that he has two daughters with his ex-wife, Lyudmila Putina.
Although he never publicly confirmed their identities, it would concern Maria Vorontsova, a biologist, and Katerina Tikhonova, a businesswoman.
Putin reportedly started a relationship with Kabaeva after his divorce in 2008.
According to the Dossier Center report, Ivan Putin was born in 2015 in a private clinic in Lugano, Switzerland, while Vladimir Jr. was born in Moscow in 2019.
“Ivan Putin told his teachers and guards on several occasions… that Vladimir Putin was so happy when he was born that he shouted: ‘Hurray! Finally! A boy!’” the report said.
The Dossier Center is run by exiled Russian opposition leader Mikhail Khodorkovsky and is publishing explosive stories about Putin and his circle since 2018.
The latest report said details of the children’s lives were closely guarded and that the boys had been using “cover documents intended primarily for intelligence officers and people under state protection” since childhood.
“Only their closest relatives know their dates of birth.”
They live an isolated life on Putin’s luxurious estate in Valdai, northwest of Moscow, where they are surrounded by tutors, nannies, sports coaches and security guards, the Dossier Center said.
According to a 2021 report by Alexander Navalny’s associates, Waldai, the Russian dissident who died under suspicious circumstances in January, is Putin’s “personal favorite.”
The report says that visitors to the Valdai estate, including children, must spend two weeks in isolation. Putin himself is reportedly insisted on this measure at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic for those who come into contact with him.
The children spend their winters skiing in Sochi, on the Black Sea, where Putin still has a huge palace, the report said. Their summers are spent on yachts, restricted to Russian waters in the aftermath of the war in Ukraine.
“They usually have to play alone or with adults… They see their parents only late at night, and their peers – especially during large parties,” the Dossier Center wrote.
They would have access to private jets, armored trains, helicopters and yachts.
Like their father, there is strict security around them, the Dossier Center reports.
“Like Vladimir Putin, his sons have their own mugs and drink from them alone,” it says, while security officials “always stand close to the children.”
The investigation claimed to have found posts on a website offering tutoring services to Russia’s elite, advertising jobs to teach boys.
The advertisement asks for teachers who can teach English and who accept that they cannot leave the remote estate where the children live.
The salary would be $8,540 per month, the report said.
South African teachers are preferred because they have less negative attitudes towards Russia after the war in Ukraine, the report said.
The report found that the children rarely see Putin, but that he “treats his sons with more respect than he ever did his daughters.”
It said that Putin “is the only one who can speak sternly to them.”
“None of them dare to argue with the children, so the boys grow up with the idea that they are exceptional. Their every whim is fulfilled and they consider all the homes they live in as their personal property,” the report said.
It says that Ivan is a Disney lover and likes to dress up as Disney characters. The Russian president, it says, disapproves of Soviet-era cartoons and prefers them.
Every now and then, Putin and his eldest son play ice hockey together on a special private ice hockey rink in the Valdai estate, the report said.
Putin has been the dominant figure in Russian politics since 2000, and analysts have long speculated about who he would appoint as his successor.
Read the original article at Company Insider