Who is Alina Kabaeva, Vladimir Putin's rumoured girlfriend?
Vladimir Putin is believed to be in a relationship with former Olympic gymnast Alina Kabaeva, who hasn't been seen in public since 2018.
The war between Russia and Ukraine is raging on as negotiators work behind the scenes to try and encourage the two parties to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict, which has already cost thousands of lives and shows no sign of reaching a peaceful conclusion as things stand. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he is open to discussions with Russia to bring an end to the fighting, but as yet his counterpart Vladimir Putin has given little intimation that he is willing to meet at the negotiating table, despite Russian forces meeting a level of resistance on the ground that the Kremlin clearly did not expect. In the meantime, more and more Russians are voicing their objection to the war and questioning the motives of Putin, an enigmatic leader whose private life is closely guarded, as are the identities of the Russian leader’s innermost circle.
One person who has often been cited as one of Putin’s closest confidants is Alina Kabaeva, a hugely decorated gymnast who won Olympic all-round gold in 2004 and has 24 World and European golds to her name. Kabaeva is a well-known celebrity and politician in Russia, where rumours of an intimate relationship with Putin, 31 years her senior, have been circulating for many years. Putin was married to Lyudmila Aleksandrovna Ocheretnaya from 1983 to 2014, a union that produced two children, Maria and Katerina, who the Russian president has never publicly acknowledged. There are also unconfirmed reports that he may have had more children with Kabaeva, although Putin has also never publicly acknowledged either.
Kabaeva's meteoric rise
Kabaeva retired from gymnastics in 2004, shortly after her Olympic triumph, and went on to work as a model. In 2005, she became a member of the Public Chamber of Russia and in 2007 she was elected to the Russian Parliament as a representative of United Russia, a Putin-aligned party whose chairman is former president and prime minister Dmitry Medvedev. During her political career, Kabaeva became a close advisor to Putin. She stepped down in 2014 and took up a role as chairperson of the National Media Group, Russia’s largest media organization.
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Kabaeva disappeared from the public eye in 2018, when rumours emerged that she was pregnant, with Putin the supposed father. It is believed that she gave birth to twins in April that year at a Moscow clinic, after which she was removed from the public sphere to guarantee the protection and anonymity of her children.