Russian President Vladimir Putin turned 70 on Friday. 23 of them were at the head of Russia, both the president and the prime minister. But for the most part, his behind-the-scenes life is the Kremlin’s best-kept secret.

The situation may seem even more strange if you consider that the result of the referendum on changes to the Constitution, proposed by him two years ago and organized under the most ridiculous conditions, allows him to remain in power until 2036.

But as several political scientists and sociologists recently explained, after the February 24 war in Ukraine renewed interest in Putin’s private life, his cult of personality depends on secrecy.

While other politicians, especially Western ones, use social media to get their messages across and flaunt their families on the international stage to win over voters, experts say it is unlikely that the Kremlin leader will ever blur the line between his public and personal life.

“I know that Western political culture assumes that family members should be in the center of attention. I think [în Rusia] we are not in a situation where such theater would be appropriate. Everything we do must be mature,” Putin himself said in 2020.

As Wilson Center researcher Kamil Galeyev explained in an analysis published last month, in Russia, unlike in the West, overly close family ties are seen as a vulnerability, not an advantage.

He claims that the idea of ​​submitting “with humility and patience” to the supreme authority is rooted in the Russian mentality, which they consider a semi-religious virtue.

“Power cannot be questioned, it is impregnable, no one can influence the king. But if anyone can question or influence the king, even his wife, it destroys our mental model of the world. Is he even a king? If she’s asking him, why should we? Is our virtue really such a great virtue?”, he notes.

In addition, the Kremlin leader, who often talks about trying to return Russia to “traditional family values”, cannot allow Russians to discuss how he behaved in family life.

Putin with his ex-wife and daughters (PHOTO: social networks-East2west / WillWest News / Profimedia Images)

Official daughters of Vladimir Putin

Officially, the Russian president has two daughters from his ex-wife Lyudmila Shkrebnova: 37-year-old Maria Vorontsova and 36-year-old Kateryna Tikhonova. He very rarely talks about them publicly.

Both were sanctioned by the United States in April because they are believed to have played an important role in hiding the leader’s wealth from the Kremlin. The European Union announced sanctions against Putin’s daughters two days after the administration in Washington.

In one of his few comments about his daughters, Vladimir Putin said in 2015 at his marathon press conference organized once a year by the Kremlin that they “live in Russia (…) They never studied anywhere but Russia.”

Russian media reported that they were removed from the school in Germany where they began their studies and then meditated privately in Moscow.

“I am proud of them,” said the Russian president, noting that his daughters speak three foreign languages. When asked about the details, he declined to answer, citing “security considerations.”

In 2013, the leader of the Kremlin announced that he was divorcing his wife in an awkward interview that he gave together with her to the journalists of “Russia-24” immediately after leaving the performance. The divorce of the two was finalized in April 2014.

Only a year later, Lyudmila got married and took the surname Oretsetna, in honor of her husband.

• On the same topic: How corruption works in the family of Vladimir Putin – The story of a historic palace in Moscow, luxurious villas in Europe and piles of public money

Secret family of the leader of the Kremlin

However, it is believed that Vladimir Putin has several secret daughters. One of them would be Yelyzaveta Volodymyrivna Kryvonogikh, whom Putin allegedly had with a former housekeeper, Svitlana Kryvonogikh, who, after becoming engaged to him, became a dollar millionaire, having received shares in one of the largest banks in Russia.

The information was made public in November 2020 by Project journalists, who noted at the time that Putin’s relationship with the girl’s mother allegedly began in the 1990s and that she lived in a communal apartment before moving “to the most elite housing that a resident of St. Petersburg lived in a communal house”. Petersburg”.

According to the Project, one of the most famous investigative sites in Russia at the time, the relationship between Putin and Svetlana ended sometime in the late 2000s.

The project also noted that Elizaveta, who was born in 2003 and allegedly lived in recent years under a different name, deleted all photos with her face on social media accounts created under a fake name after reporters contacted his mother for comment .

Russian authorities banned the Project website last July and labeled its journalists as “foreign agents”.

The current partner of the Russian president is Alina Kabaeva, one of the most decorated Olympic gymnasts in the history of Russia. It is not known when the relationship between them began, but the newspaper “Moscow Correspondent” wrote in April 2008 that they were engaged, despite the fact that at that time Putin was still married to Lyudmila.

Alina Kabaeva with younger Vladimir Putin (PHOTO: kremlin.ru)

The newspaper was closed by the Russian authorities immediately after the article was published. “I never liked those who pry into other people’s private lives with their infected noses and erotic fantasies,” Putin commented at the time.

Sources give different numbers on the number of children together, and most, including Forbes, say it will be 3 or 4. Kabaeva is believed to live with the couple’s children in Switzerland, her public appearances in Russia: as in the case of “official” daughters Putin, extremely rarely.

Also, as in the case of the publicly recognized daughters of Vladimir Putin, it is believed that Alina Kabaeva plays an important role in disguising the real fortune of the Kremlin leader.

The European Union, Great Britain, Canada and the United States imposed sanctions on Kabaeva after the Kremlin leader launched the war in Ukraine in an attempt to financially harm Russian officials responsible for planning the war, as well as Kremlin propagandists and friends of Putin who live a life of luxury in West.

And as in the case of the first mistress of the Russian president, Kabaeva and her family would have become rich through connections with people from Putin’s inner circle.

In addition, Kabaeva was a member of the Moscow parliament from Putin’s United Russia party for eight years, after which in 2014 she was appointed to head the Russian state media conglomerate National Media, where she receives an annual salary of $10 million.

Assumptions about the huge fortune of Vladimir Putin

Most Western publications write that during 23 years in power, Vladimir Putin would have accumulated a fortune of 200 billion dollars, although it should be remembered that under the guise of a KGB agent and then a politician who held various positions in St. Petersburg and Moscow, Putin was never a poor man before he became the prime minister and then the president of Russia.

Such a fortune would make the Russian president the second-richest person in the world after Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, whose net worth is now estimated by Bloomberg at $222 billion.

For comparison, Bloomberg also estimates the fortune of Jeff Bezos at $144 billion, Bill Gates at $111 billion, and Warren Buffett at $97.5 billion. But when it comes to the fortunes of the Kremlin leader, it is necessary to make several important clarifications.

First, unlike most American billionaires (and not only), whose wealth is mostly determined by the stock market valuation of their companies, Putin’s wealth is believed to be mainly represented by core assets that are not as vulnerable to depreciation: palaces, vacation homes, land , super yachts, cars and collectible watches, etc.

In this sense, Elon Musk said in an interview with Business Insider journalists in March of this year that he considers Vladimir Putin to be “significantly richer” than him. And, as many probably know, Musk is not exactly known for his modesty.

But it should also be remembered that almost all estimates of Putin’s wealth are based on testimony given in 2017 before the US Congress by Bill Browder, former CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, which specializes in investing in Russian markets.

In fact, Vladimir Putin’s wealth is impossible to quantify because he has next to nothing. As shown by several investigations conducted by independent Russian journalists before the complete suppression of the free press in the country, Putin’s property is listed in the names of various relatives, intermediaries close to the Kremlin, oligarchs, etc. in the documents.

A palace worthy of a king (PHOTO: Youtube footage)

A huge palace on the shores of the Black Sea, among the whims of the Russian president

Neither the Panama Papers scandal of 2016 nor the Pandora Papers of last year could connect anything directly to the name of Vladimir Putin. Do many of them lead to the Kremlin or to Putin’s cronies, who are most likely being used as fronts to hide his wealth? So. But something direct and undeniable? No

Vladimir Putin presents himself to the Russian people as a humble person. In his wealth declaration, published on the Kremlin’s website in April this year, the Russian president indicates that he has a salary of about 112,000 euros a year and that he owns a modest apartment of 77 square meters and a garage of 18 square meters.

According to the same statement, he owns two old cars “Gaz M21” and “Lada Niva” with a trailer “Skiff”. That is why the investigation by Alexei Navalny’s team about Putin’s extravagant Black Sea palace, valued at $1.1 billion, made public in January 2021, caused such a stir in the Kremlin.

Immediately after the publication of the investigation, the largest government protests in recent years broke out in Russia. Despite their unprecedented scale in recent years, they were eventually suppressed without much fanfare by Russian security forces.

On February 1 of this year, Moscow authorities ordered the media to remove all investigations by Navalny’s team, just hours after investigators close to the jailed Russian dissident released new photos obtained from the palace.

Sources: ABC, NDTV, RNZ, Business Insider, CNN, Forbes and others mentioned in the article.