Putin’s daughters take centre stage at ‘Russia’s Davos’ convention

The daughters of Russia’s President are speaking at a major business conference in an unprecedented public appearance together this week – a move seen as an indicator that Moscow‘s elites are preparing for a world post-Putin. 

The St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) – a glitzy annual event in the Venice of the North billed as ‘Russia‘s Davos’ – is believed to be the first major function both daughters have attended. 

Putin, 71, is of course Russia’s most famous man, having ruled the Federation as either President or Prime Minister for almost a quarter-century, but he is notoriously private about his family life. 

Russia’s state media are forbidden from reporting on his daughters and cannot mention them in connection to him.

Nor will the press dare to report on his relationship with his alleged longtime mistress and former Olympic gymnast Alina Kabaeva, 41 – who is believed to have given birth to at least two more children – or another child he is thought to have fathered with a former cleaning lady turned multi-millionaire. 

The Russian President’s eldest daughter – Maria Vorontsova, 39 – is an endocrinologist and is taking part in a panel this afternoon on Russia’s bioeconomy.

Her younger sister Katerina Tikhonova, 37, is the director of Innopraktika – a foundation that invests in and supports various scientific and technological projects, including a top drone manufacturer.

Yesterday she participated in a discussion on the role of Russia’s military industrial complex in growing the tech sector that was moderated by Putin’s propagandist-in-chief Vladimir Solovyov. 

Besides her work in the tech industry, Tikhonova is also a renowned rock-and-roll dancer. 

Both of their names appear in the official SPIEF event timetable and brochure but are tucked away dozens of pages deep with no mention of their relation to the Russian President.  

Vorontsova and Tikhonova are the children of Putin and his ex-wife Lyudmila Shkrebneva, 66, who was Russia’s First Lady until their divorce in 2013, though they had effectively been separated for years prior to the eventual split.

All four can be seen in images dating back to the 1990s and early 2000s, but all mention of their existence in Russia’s state media sphere was effectively erased as Putin – who has never formally acknowledged them – consolidated his power as Kremlin chief. 

The official Putin family tree traces his family back 13 generations when they were peasants in Tver region, but stops abruptly with the Kremlin ruler, not even including Lyudmila, who is now named Lyudmila Ocheretnaya following her marriage to Russian businessman Artur Ocheretny. 

Now though, both daughters are cultivating their own public profiles as they climb high in the ranks of their respective fields – something many observers believe is a sign of Putin’s march toward old age and the inevitable fallout his eventual passing will bring. 

As the members of Putin’s inner circle and Moscow’s elite grow old, their children are seeking to elevate their own profiles, or are being placed into pivotal leadership roles in politics and business.

This a nepotistic tactic designed to guarantee their future prosperity and to protect them ahead of Putin’s death – or the unlikely event he is forced to relinquish power. 

‘This is a way in which Putin can ensure regime fealty from these elite members by making sure that they know they are being looked after, and that their children are being looked after,’ Dr Ben Noble, associate professor of Russian politics at University College London, told The Times. 

Putin himself espouses traditional values and often waxes lyrical about the importance of having a large, strong family in speeches and interviews.

He also routinely urges the Russian population to have more children amid a population slump, telling women to have many more kids in one particularly infamous call to action last year. 

And although the Russian President does not talk about his own family, he is believed to have made a fair contribution toward his goal of growing Russia’s population.

For well over a decade, the Kremlin chief has been linked to Alina Kabaeva, a gold medal-winning Olympian described by a Maxim photographer who once shot her nude as being ‘full of sex’.

Unsettling photos from the early 2000s show Putin gazing intently at a teenage Kabaeva – 30 years his junior – as he gifted her bouquets of flowers.

The pair are believed to have privately married, with independent Russian outlets reporting Kabaeva has had at least two children at a private clinic in Switzerland.

Kabaeva herself has given several coy and cryptic interviews about her love for an unnamed man – who sounds suspiciously like Putin – and has been gifted highly prestigious positions, including chairwoman of the National Media Group which is described on its website as Russia’s largest private media holding company. 

But the Kremlin chief is also believed to have fathered a fifth child with a third woman. 

Svetlana Krivonogikh was born in Putin’s hometown of St. Petersburg in 1975 and went on to study at the city’s University of Economics and Finance in the department of international relations.

She is rumoured to have been working as a shop cleaner following her education in the late 1990s, where she allegedly caught the eye of Putin.

In 2020, independent Russian investigative news site Proekt claimed that Krivonogikh formed a friendship with Putin while he was St Petersburg’s deputy mayor – and therefore still married to Lyudmila Shkrebneva.

Scarce public evidence suggests the pair travelled together on the same planes as Putin rose through the ranks.

But a leak of millions of sensitive documents in 2021 – known as the Pandora Papers – revealed how Krivonogikh grew rich after Putin became Russia’s president in 2000.

She came into possession of several properties, including a luxurious Moscow apartment, bought in 2003. She also became a shareholder in Bank Rossiya, known for its connections to Putin’s inner circle.

According to Proekt, Krivonogikh accumulated a $100m fortune from her holding in Bank Rossiya.

And in March 2003 – three years after Putin became president – she gave birth to a daughter, who is known as Elizaveta Krivonogikh, or’ Luiza Rozova’.

For a time Rozova, who is now in her early 20s, regularly posted on Instagram about her own glamorous life – attending parties, spending time with friends from influential families and travelling on private jets.

But her social media disappeared immediately following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.