While Vladimir Putin has been in office for more than two decades, he remains an enigma and there are few confirmed facts about his personal life.
In his speeches, “he plays this up through things like the language,” an associate professor of national security and political science at the University of New Haven, Matthew Schmidt, Ph.D., says. “He’s a caricature, he’s like a fairytale czar.” “I never discuss my family with anyone,” Vladimir Putin said in 2015 when asked about his family.
As Dr. Schmidt points out, secrecy isn’t all that unusual: Like North Korean Dictator Kim Jong Un, several other leaders keep their inner circle out of the public eye as well.
There are, however, enough documents, media reports, and occasional public statements to at least paint a vague picture of Putin’s personal life.
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Who Are Putin’s Daughters?
U.S. sanctions against Vladimir Putin’s daughters Maria Vorontsova and Katerina Tikhonova in response to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine have been widely reported.
As a pediatric endocrinologist and genetics researcher, Maria works in the public eye less than her sister, though she appeared on a Russian network in 2019 to discuss the prevalence of childhood obesity and diabetes. However, Katerina has made quite a name for herself as a competitive dancer, and her performances can be found on YouTube. In 2015, Bloomberg reported that she had been named CEO of a $1.6 billion startup, making her the most powerful woman in tech. Sometime before their reported break-up in 2018, she wed Russian businessman Kirill Shamalov. As recently as a few years ago, Putin confirmed that he is a grandfather, but he refused to provide any additional information.
After being asked about his daughters at a 2015 news conference, Vladimir Putin said succinctly, “My daughters live and study only in Russia, and I am very proud of them.” “They are fluent in three different languages.”
What about Putin’s ex-wife and gymnast girlfriend?
His first wife, Lyudmila Shkrebneva, gave birth to Maria and Katerina, two of his daughters. After meeting in 1983, when she was a flight attendant, they remained together for 30 years as Putin rose to power in Russia.
It was then reported in 2008 that Putin had divorced Shkrebneva and engaged to Olympic gymnast Alina Kabaeva, who is 30 years his junior. It was five years before Putin publicly announced his divorce from Shkrebneva after he denied the allegations and the newspaper was shut down following the shocking report. Despite the Kremlin’s denials, it is widely believed that Putin and Kabaeva are the parents of four children, including a set of identical twins.
While it’s rumored that Shkrebneva spent some time in a monastery before marrying her much younger husband, Artur Ocheretny, she appears to have a happy ending of her own.
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Why Is Putin So Secretive About His Family?
For all that we know about Putin’s private life, the question remains: why does he even conceal his personal life from the public? Dr. Schmidt is most concerned about safeguarding his own family’s safety, so this is the most important consideration.
I don’t think you should underestimate his fatherhood and his desire to protect his children, says Dr. Schmidt. In other words, he’s been doing it for a long time before the conflict in Ukraine.
There may also be more strategic reasons, such as national security, to explain why this is happening now. According to Dr. Schmidt, Putin’s decision to keep his family out of the public eye is an attempt to protect them from “making mistakes and being targets of intelligence or being some kind of pathway for information to go out and sabotage them.
For national security expert John Sipher, Putin’s family’s secrecy is due more to Putin’s past as a KGB spy than anything else (Committee for State Security).
The former member of the National Clandestine Service of the Central Intelligence Agency’s National Clandestine Service, Sipher, says, “He’s sort of got this strong-man mentality that he needs to always be in control of every situation.”
We Also Know Very Little About Putin’s Wealth
Regardless of Putin’s motivations, it’s impossible to deny the financial benefits of his secrecy. As an example, many people believe that Vladimir Putin’s family is laundering money on his behalf, and there are numerous reports to support this. Vladimir Putin’s family members were reportedly using the country’s largest bank to hide money in 2018.
Putin’s net worth is a subject of some debate, but it is generally accepted that he has amassed a sizable fortune throughout a long and successful career in finance. According to some estimates, he may be the world’s wealthiest person with assets of up to $200 billion. On the other hand, Vladimir Putin insists he makes $140,000 a year and owns a small apartment and three cars.
Vladimir Putin and his family are under increasing scrutiny as the conflict in Ukraine rages on, and some question whether he can continue to maintain a low-key personal life. Sophisticated big data and open-source investigative journalism groups like Bellingcat may be less hesitant to investigate Putin’s personal life as more Russians and others flee the conflict.
According to him, there are a lot of Russians (and Russian media professionals) who have fled Russia, and they may be more willing to share their knowledge now that they’re no longer in the country.
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