The many lovers – and love children – of Vladimir Putin

Despite his being one of the most famous people in the world, Vladimir Putin’s personal life is shrouded in mystery. Photo / Getty Images

In many respects, Elizaveta Krivonogikh, 21, looks like any other glamorous rich young expat living it up in the fashion capitals of the world. Think Emily in Paris, the Russian version. The former student and occasional disc jockey once posted pictures of herself to social media pouting in designer clothes. For a long time, she didn’t show her face in her Instagram feed, and when she did, it was clear why. Her uncanny resemblance to her famous father is impossible to miss.

This week, the Ukrainian television station TSN disclosed more details about Elizaveta, who also goes by the name Luiza Rozova. She is understood to be Vladimir Putin’s secret illegitimate daughter, the result of his affair in the 1990s with shop cleaner-turned-multimillionaire Svetlana Krivonogikh.

The Russian leader’s personal life has been shrouded in secrecy for decades. To this day, Putin’s number of children and his current relationship status remain taboo subjects for the Russian media.

But the invasion of Ukraine has shone a light on his inner circle, who enjoy lavish lifestyles and get promoted to lucrative jobs. So what do we really know about the love life of the man who has steered the superpower for 24 years?

Elizaveta Krivonogikh, who also goes by the name Luiza Rozova, is understood to be Vladimir Putin’s secret illegitimate daughter, the result of his affair in the 1990s with shop cleaner-turned-multimillionaire Svetlana Krivonogikh. Photo / via Instagram

In July 1983, Putin married Lyudmila Putina, a flight attendant. They met in the early 1980s when a mutual friend invited them both to the theatre.

“I became friends with Lyuda, my future wife,” Putin once recalled, with his characteristic lack of emotion, on his presidential website. “I understood that if I didn’t marry for another two or three years, I would never marry. Though, of course, I had made a habit of leading a bachelor’s life. Lyudmila uprooted it.”

Putin married flight attendant Lyudmila Putina in 1983. Photo / Getty Images

Black-and-white photographs of their wedding day show Putina in a high-necked white dress and full veil and Putin, who at that point was a 30-year-old KGB officer, in a dark suit and stripy tie.

During their marriage, Putin moved up the ranks of the KGB and its successor, the FSB, before he succeeded Boris Yeltsin as President in 1999. Lyudmila taught German at Leningrad State University. The pair went on to have two daughters in the 1980s – Maria Vorontsova, now 39, a paediatric endocrinologist and the head of the Moscow State University AI institute, and Katerina Tikhonova, 38, an accomplished rock and roll dancer.

Maria Vorontsova, Putin’s daughter, is a paediatric endocrinologist. Photo / AFP

Putin has never been seen in public with either of his daughters and has never publicly acknowledged them, but during a 2017 interview with the filmmaker Oliver Stone, Putin confirmed that he was a grandfather. When Stone asked if he played with his grandchild, Putin replied: “Very seldom, unfortunately.”

Vladimir Putin’s daughter Katerina Tikhonova is an accomplished rock and roll dancer. Photo / AFP

Vladimir and Lyuda announced their separation in June 2013, just weeks before their 30th wedding anniversary. Reports suggest that Lyuda didn’t like the growing attention on Putin, nor his 16- and 17-hour days.

The Moscow Times reported that she once told a friend that Putin was a “vampire”, to which he allegedly retorted that anyone who could put up with his wife for three weeks “deserved a monument”.

She was rarely seen in public towards the end of the marriage, even on her own, sparking speculation that she was in a convent.

In 2008, the Moskovsky Korrespondent reported that Putin was in a relationship with the former Olympic gymnast Alina Kabaeva, who was by then an MP for Putin’s United Russia party. Putin denied the claims and, after publishing the revelations, the newspaper was forced to shut down.

Although Putin’s political rival Alexei Navalny claimed that Putin and Kabaeva had married in 2013, Putin’s spokesman dismissed the claims as “an internet exercise to relieve boredom”.

In 2014, “Russia’s secret First Lady”, as Kabaeva was known, was made head of the National Media Group, on a reported salary of $16.8 million. Both Putin and Kabaeva were seen wearing wedding rings at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, and Kabaeva was chosen as a torch-bearer at the opening ceremony.

Alina Kabaeva has been dubbed ‘Russia’s secret First Lady’. Photo / Getty Images

Although Putin and Kabaeva have been linked for more than two decades, they have never confirmed their relationship. In 2008, Putin was asked about her during a news conference in Italy with Silvio Berlusconi.

“I am, of course, aware of the cliche that politicians live in glass houses, but even in these cases, there must be some limits,” Putin said. “I always disliked people who go around with their erotic fantasies, sticking their snot-ridden noses into another person’s life.” Berlusconi then mimed shooting the reporter who asked the question with an imaginary machine gun.

Rumours have swirled for years that Kabaeva – once known for her signature move, a back split pivot called the “Kabaeva”, and dubbed “Russia’s most flexible woman” – is the mother of more of Putin’s children.

In September, an investigation by the Dossier Centre, founded by the exiled former oligarch and opposition activist Mikhail Khodorkovsky, revealed that Putin has two secret sons with Kabaeva, who are now 9 and 5.

According to the report, they live a luxurious but isolated life at a variety of presidential residences, where they are taken care of by round-the-clock nannies, personal chefs, drivers, sports trainers and tutors. They supposedly enjoy ice hockey and Disney films.

But it appears they are not the Russian President’s only illegitimate children. In 2020, the independent investigative Russian media platform Proekt claimed that Putin had a relationship with a cleaner called Svetlana Krivonogikh while married to Lyudmila, during the late 1990s.

Krivonogikh and her daughter, Elizaveta, regularly posted images of their glamorous jet-set lives on social media.

Elizaveta Krivonogikh bears a striking resemblance to Vladimir Putin.

Elizaveta – who in 2020 said she was studying art and culture in St Petersburg – answered questions from a Proekt journalist on Clubhouse, an invitation-only audio-chat social networking app.

“Have I caused you a bad trauma by my investigation?” asked the journalist. Elizaveta replied: “Oh no, not at all. My life was so stagnant, I am very grateful for the chance to be in the limelight, that people heard about my account. I’m not trying and never have to popularise myself. I am feeling very well indeed, don’t worry about me. My life goes on, and all is well.”

She refused to answer when asked if she was Putin’s daughter, and didn’t want to be drawn on her political views. “You are right that I live in my art world, it’s true, I live in my bubble,” she said. “I don’t watch TV; sometimes I follow news on Telegram, but not too much. I watch fashion shows, I buy Vogue magazine. I like to go to a nearby restaurant, have tasty pasta and discuss the latest gossip and investigations with my friends.”

After Proekt’s stories were published, Russia’s state media watchdog blocked the website. Almost all of Proekt’s reporters were designated as “foreign agents” and the editor was forced to relocate to the United States.

At the time, the then-18-year-old Elizaveta had 84,000 followers on Instagram with her account @LuizaRoz_. But she stopped posting publicly after the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022, after other users trolled her with Ukraine flag emojis and suggested she was hiding in a bunker.

Her account has since been deleted or hidden, but this week, TSN has uncovered more details about her life by using leaked flight manifests. The Ukrainian television station reports that she has been a student at the Paris School of Management and Arts. It claims to have tracked down her birth certificate, disclosing that she was born on March 3 2003 (a decade before Putin’s divorce). The father’s name was not given on the birth certificate, but her patronymic name was indicated as Vladimirovna. Under Russian naming convention, Putin’s daughters would take this patronymic form of his last name.

Her mother, Svetlana, 49, is certainly one of the wealthiest women in Russia. In October 2021, the leaked Pandora Papers disclosed that Krivonogikh had bought a lavish $6.3m fourth-floor apartment in Monte Carlo through an offshore shell company in 2003 – the same year she gave birth to her daughter. The documents also appeared to show her current wealth as being more than $170m.

In May 2022, Liz Truss announced that Britain would impose sanctions on Putin’s inner circle after the invasion of Ukraine. It was bad news for his wives and lovers – acknowledged or otherwise. Alina Kabaeva and Putin’s ex-wife Lyudmila (who has since married a businessman 20 years her junior) were included on the list.

There has been no response from the Kremlin on these new allegations about Elizaveta being Putin’s daughter. Although another round of British sanctions in February 2023 included Svetlana Krivonogikh, their lives will probably remain unchanged. Isolated in the protective bubble that is being in Putin’s mysterious inner circle.

-Agence France-Presse