Putin’s gymnastics enthusiast rarely appears at a children’s gymnastics event

Vladimir Putin’s gymnastics enthusiast has made a rare appearance at a children’s gymnastics event from areas of Ukraine invaded by Russia.

Alina Kabaeva, 39 — a former Olympic gold medalist and long-time mistress of Putin — attended the Evgeniya Cup in Omsk, Siberia, posing alongside younger female performers and other members of the jury.

The gymnast sat on a panel with other hosts, before standing to applause to present a winner with flowers and photos of the contestants.

The dictator’s 39-year-old lover traditionally preferred to hide out in Switzerland, where she gave birth to one of his children in 2015, according to reports.

But sanctions against Putin have restricted her travels to the West – and instead she flew under high security to Omsk in Siberia as a special guest at the gymnastics event.

Omsk is more than 3,000 kilometers from at least two palaces it shares with Putin – one hidden in forests in northern Russia’s Valdai, the other in Gelendzhik on a cliff overlooking the Black Sea.

It is unclear how long she will remain in Siberia.

It comes amid speculation that Kabaeva – mother of at least two of Putin’s children in a secret family hidden from Russian people – is angling for a major political role in his regime.

One theory is that she wants to succeed the speaker of the senate for the country’s Federation Council, Valentina Matviyenko, 74, the highest-ranking female official in Putin’s entourage, who is widely seen as poised to retire.

The pair were spotted together at the Kabaeva Gymnastics Center in Sochi last month.

Such a nepotistic move would spark rumors that she could eventually succeed 70-year-old Putin as president.

Kabaeva, wearing a wedding ring signifying a secret marriage to Putin, was surrounded by a coterie of Secret Service bodyguards when she met Matviyenko.

Putin has never admitted any relationship let alone marriage or children with Kabaeva, but most Russians accept as fact that she shares his multiple palaces and lavish lifestyle, even though state media is forbidden to reveal details about their relationship. to make.

Former dissident Russian MP Maria Maksakova, 45, claims Kabaeva’s goal is to take over Matviyenko’s role.

Kabaeva is now the nominal head of an oligarch-owned medical conglomerate slavishly loyal to Putin.

“As for Kabaeva’s fate, I think she wants to get the role of Valentina Matviyenko, even though it seems quite difficult,” Maksakova told Fakty Ukraine.

Kabaeva “understands future threats” — and the risk to her and Putin’s children if his health deteriorates and he is no longer president, she said.

She also realizes that her sports career and medals will not save her from an unsightly possible fate.

“So she has to think not only about herself, but also that her children do not suffer the fate of Ivan Antonovich.”

Antonovich was a young emperor who was eventually killed and who ruled Russia as Ivan VI after being proclaimed Tsar in 1740.

Maksakova’s husband ex-Russian MP Denis Voronenkov, 45, was killed in an apparent political assassination in Kiev after he defected to Ukraine and claimed to have been persecuted by Putin’s secret services

In his last interview before he was shot dead, he claimed that the FSB secret service – once headed by Putin – was “in charge of everything in Russia,” and warned that his country was “like Nazi Germany.”

Under Putin, “the whole country is going crazy in a pseudo-patriotic stupor,” he said.

Kabaeva has been credited as Putin’s girlfriend since 2008 – when he was still married to former Russian first lady Lyudmila Putina – three years after he presented her with a major award at the Kremlin.

She gave birth in Switzerland in 2015 and in Moscow in 2019.

Until the beginning of the war, she regularly used a Swiss country house overlooking Lake Geneva.

According to reports, she shares Putin’s homes, including a forest palace in Valdai.