Putin’s daughters to be personally sanctioned by US and EU ahead of plan to ban investment in Russia

Little is known about the personal lives of Tikhonova (left), a scientist and former acrobat, and Vorontosva (right), an endocrinologist, but they are expected to be subject to asset freezes and travel bans from today.

Katerina Tikhonova, 35, and Mariya Vorontsova (pictured), 36, are on the EU’s latest draft list of targets that includes oligarchs, politicians and those said to be within Putin’s inner circle

Although it is unclear if the pair have holdings outside of Russia, any potential life of luxury they could have led outside of Russia is now likely to be a distant dream thanks to Putin.

Putin has never publicly acknowledged having any kids, though it is common knowledge that he shares two daughters with his ex-wife (pictured). Many have speculated that the former head of the KGB also shares a lovechild with a woman once dubbed ‘the most flexible woman in Russia’, while others say he fathered another child with a former cleaner-turned-multimillionaire part-owner of a Russian bank.

Putin has previously said: ‘I have a private life in which I do not permit interference. It must be respected.’ He deplored ‘those who with their snotty noses and erotic fantasies prowl into others’ lives’. With that in mind, here’s what we know about Putin’s children.

MARIA FAASSEN: At 36, Maria Faassen (pictured) is Putin’s first child and the eldest daughter of two he shares with his ex-wife, Lyudmila Putina, from whom he separated in 2013 after 30 years of marriage. Putina, who was born Lyudmila Shkrebneva, met Putin in the early 1980s while they were both studying at the then Leningrad State University. The couple married on July 28, 1983, and Maria was born in April 1985.

Maria – born Maria Vladimirovna Putinam and also known as Maria Vorontsova – is named after Putin’s mother, Maria Ivanovna Shelomova, and seemed destined to be a scientist from the start. She showed great aptitude for the sciences at school as a young child in East Germany and as a teen in Moscow, before going on to study biology at St Petersburg State University.

After completing her studies, she entered medical school in Moscow. She has since become a pediatric endocrinologist and one of Russia’s top experts on dwarfism. She recently appeared on Russian state TV to discuss her research on genetic testing and efforts to combat rare genetic diseases in children. She is married to Dutch businessman Jorrit Faassen with whom she shares a child, making the Russian President a grandfather. She’s pictured in BBC Russia in 2019. 

KATERINA TIKHONOVA: Katerina Tikhonova, born Yekaterina Vladimirovna Putina, is the second child of the Russian President and the younger sister of Maria. Katerina dropped the surname Putina, opting instead to take on the patronymic surname of her maternal grandmother, Yekaterina Tikhonovna Shkrebneva. She was born in August 1986 and attended the same schools in East Germany and Moscow as her sister, but took up a drastically different set of interests. Although the 35-year-old is now a director for the Institute for Mathematical Research of Complex Systems at Moscow State University and also studied at St Petersburg State University, Katerina is arguably best-known for her success as a rock ‘n’ roll dancer. 

Katerina became a member of Russia’s Council for the Development of Physical Culture and Mass Sports back in 2019, and she has also played a key role in the development of acrobatic rock ‘n’ roll dancing – something that has long been a niche discipline. For years, Putin’s second daughter served as the vice president for expansion and marketing at the World Rock and Roll Confederation (WWRC) – the body which organizes competitions in the discipline worldwide. Katerina was previously married to Kirill Shamalov – part-owner of SIBUR Holding, a Russian petrochemicals company – and son of the co-owner of one of Russia’s largest banks. The couple divorced in 2018, when it was revealed that they shared assets of around $2 billion. 

LUIZA ROZOVA: Luiza Rozova, 18, has never formally been acknowledged by the Russian president, but many believe she is Putin’s third child. Luiza is the daughter of cleaner-turned-multimillionaire Svetlana Krivonogikh, 45, now a part-owner of a major Russian bank and one of the country’s wealthiest women. The Russian leader is thought to have had an affair with Krivonogikh, and Rozova herself has admitted to Russian GQ that she ‘probably looks similar’ to a young Putin. Krivonogikh has never commented on claims that her daughter was fathered by the Kremlin strongman. 

Rozova, who had 84,000 followers on Instagram, stopped publicly posting five months ago when suspicions of Russian troop build-up on the Ukrainian border were first raised, triggering the suspicion that Putin had gagged her. Last week, a hacked food courier database showed deliveries to Luiza Rozova, at a ‘palace style’ Russian penthouse in St Petersburg. The home was recently worth as much as  linked to luxury property which was recently worth as much as $2.2M (£1.7 million) before Western sanctions caused a dramatic slump in the Russian economy.

Some believe, however, that Rozova is not Putin’s youngest child. The Russian President has for years been embroiled in controversy over his alleged relationship with Alina Kabaeva (pictured) – a Russian Olympic gymnast who was once dubbed ‘Russia’s most flexible woman’.

Kabaeva is one of the most decorated gymnasts in rhythmic gymnastic history, with two Olympic medals, 14 World Championship medals, and 25 European Championship medals. Many Russians saw her as the reason for the breakup of Putin’s marriage to Lyudmila, the mother of Putin’s first two daughters.

Alina has long been associated with Putin, as they have been pictured at countless events together, and Kabaeva once spoke of a mystery man who she said she ‘loves very much’. 

The gymnast was pictured pregnant in 2015, sparking rumors that Putin was the father of the child. 

The latest round of sanctions are understood to have been trigged by allegations of ‘genocide’, atrocities and war crimes against Ukrainian civilians discovered after Russian troops fell back from their position in Bucha, near Kyiv.

Further Russian imports worth an estimated $6 billion (£4.6 bn) each year, understood to include cement, liquor, vodka and caviar, will also be banned under the new raft of measures. Other measures proposed by the US and EU include sanctions on more individuals and four key Russian banks, including the second-largest, VTB.