Investigative journalists from the organization founded by Mikhail Khodorkovsky Dossier Center claims that the two sons of Vladimir Putin and former gymnast Alina Kabaeva live in isolation at Putin’s residence in Valday. Their names are Ivan and Vladimir. The “Dossier” states that Ivan was born in 2015 and Vladimir in 2019.
The authors of the investigation allegedly obtained this information from a source from the service personnel working in the presidential residences. The source lives there and, according to his claim, often sees the president’s sons. Journalists checked the biography of the source and made sure that he “really works in the Putin family”, the details of his story are confirmed by records on social networks, bank statements and data from state databases.
“They cannot be found in government databases, since childhood they have cover documents, which are mostly intended for spies and persons under state protection. Their birth dates are known only to their immediate family. They don’t fly regular flights, they have separate planes. They don’t go to kindergartens or schools, they have hired teachers. They live in residences guarded by the FSO, sail on yachts and ride armored trains, have little contact with their peers and rarely see their father,” the journalists write.
They are constantly accompanied by governesses, nannies and trainers. Putin’s sons reportedly live in the main house with their parents, while the governesses and coaches live in separate buildings. Children have their own cars with drivers. Teachers and servants travel in other cars. According to the “Dossier”, other children sometimes appear in the residence, most often the children of Kabayev’s friends. The material states that in the evenings Putin plays hockey with his eldest son, and for this reason a hockey field was built in Valday.
On the website agentury English Nanny, which recruits staff for wealthy families from Russia, journalists found an ad saying it was recruiting workers for the “presidential family”. The agency was looking for an English teacher for two boys, aged four and eight, the same age as Putin’s alleged sons, who will be living in the household in early 2024. Leaving the area where the family lives is prohibited under the terms of the contract. The offered salary was 7700 euros per month. Preference was given to candidates with a South African passport (according to the text of the “Dossier”, this country is “perceived as friendly” by Moscow). Applicants are screened by a family assistant.
The teachers are registered through “My Medicinskij Centr” (MMC), a network of private clinics where the mercenaries of the private army of the ČVK Wagner and Putin’s acquaintances were also treated. Only foreign nannies are registered through the clinic. Russian citizens are paid by other companies. According to the contract, they were supposed to receive money for the services of an interpreter, but in reality they received much more from 330 thousand rubles to 1.2 million rubles.
The “dossier” mentions the name of one of the teachers, she is a citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sofia Božičová, who teaches German. He has been working in the Putin family for at least four years. According to the source, at the beginning of 2024 there was talk in the staff that Ivan would be sent to the Sirius Lyceum in Sochi, but so far this has not happened.
Teachers and coaches mainly communicate with family assistants. Olesja Fedinová, who pretends to be the mother of Ivan and Vladimir, communicates with the teachers. He also gets to know new employees personally. “Dossier” writes that she is actually Kabaeva’s cousin.
Georgij Alburov from the FBK Naval Fund wrote that his investigation fully confirms the information of journalists from the Dossier Center.
In the spring of 2022 the Swiss newspaper Sonntags Zeitung also wrotethat Kabaeva gave birth to two boys in 2015 and 2019, whose father is Vladimir Putin. A Swiss gynecologist of Russian origin helped the Olympic winner with her pregnancy.
How is the upbringing?
“Putin treats his sons with even more respect than he used to treat his daughters. In addition, the daily life of the family is now taken care of not so much by his wife, as in the 1980s in the USSR and GDR, but by a large staff of his wife’s relatives, the president’s friends, intelligence officers and hired personnel. None of them risk fighting with the children, so the children grow up knowing that they are special. Their every whim is fulfilled, and they perceive all the residences in which they live as personal property,” Dossier Center journalists write.
The exceptional treatment of everyone around them, plus their father, only reinforces this feeling.
“Their teachers, supervisors and other employees are afraid of Putin, and he himself is the only one who can speak sternly to the boys’ souls. According to the Dossierre source, Kabaeva can also be strict and even emotional, but only her father’s punishments are taken seriously. Fatherly praise is probably the main object of their pride. For example, Ivan Putin told his governesses and guards a particularly memorable story several times. As his relatives told him, when he was born, Vladimir Putin was so happy that he shouted: ‘Hooray, it’s finally a boy!'”
Vladimir Putin married Lyudmila Shkrebneva in 1983 (she took her husband’s surname in marriage), and almost 30 years later the couple divorced. Their children are Maria Voroncovová and Kateřina Tichonovová. However, their names appear only in a few biographical publications.
In 2008, the newspaper “Moscow News” reported that the wedding of Alina Kabaeva and Vladimir Putin was being prepared in St. Petersburg. Then Putin he responded hostilely and spoke of those who “pry into other people’s lives with their erotic fantasies.” The newspaper was soon closed.
At least since 2011, the Olympic champion has not hidden her wedding ring, around the same time she herself, her mother, sister and grandmother began to receive expensive real estate as gifts from friends of the head of state.
Despite all efforts at secrecy, it seems difficult to prevent the information from eventually becoming public. In Russia itself, of course, it is not allowed to talk about it publicly.
