Vladimir Putin’s lover reacted impatiently to a crying young gymnast in the same week she reportedly has two young sons with the Kremlin dictator.
This week it was reported that 41-year-old Alina Kabaeva has two sons, aged nine and five, with the Russian leader.
The boys reportedly live like princes, isolated in palaces with their own chauffeur-driven cars, and travel in presidential armored trains, planes and yachts, while annoying their father with their love of Disney characters.
But extraordinary footage from this week shows Kabaeva, an Olympic gold medal-winning rhythmic gymnast, berating the talented Karolina Tarasova during a training session in Sochi, reducing the teenager to tears.
The girl, from Putin-occupied Donetsk in Ukraine, is a student at the Sky Grace Academy, an elite gymnastics academy run by Kabaeva in Sochi. The academy has released videos of the Kremlin’s surly, secretive first lady, who appears to be wearing a wedding ring, possibly indicating a secret marriage to Russia’s warmonger.
Alina Kabaeva, 41, pictured left, is said to have two sons, aged nine and five, with Russian ruler Vladimir Putin
Kabeva (right) was seen in footage this week brutally beating up 13-year-old gymnast Karolina Tarasova
The young gymnast was moved to tears when she was cursed at by Kabeva
The altercation was captured on camera as the teenager stood opposite the gold medal-winning gymnast and accepted her fate
Karolina drops a prop in front of Kabaeva, who is furious with her: ‘You did it on purpose now, Karolina.’ Do you hear me? Look at me. ‘Why are you doing this on purpose? You could grab the club right now.’
The girl, 14 this year and with top-level international medals to her name, apologized to Kabeva and said: “Please forgive me.”
Kabaeva replied: ‘What actually happened to you? I don’t understand. What?
Karolina promised it wouldn’t happen again, but said she failed ‘because I (just) can’t do it’.
Kabaeva told her: ‘You can really do it. You know I won’t cry, I won’t humiliate you.
‘I just turn around and go. And this is the most terrible thing – indifference. Remember it. Don’t do it again Karolina, never again.
‘This is just, you know, not to love yourself in such a way, to be humiliated with everything else you see, that’s it. And everybody’s looking at you.
‘Why are you doing this? I don’t get it. But you’re also losing ground.
“Never let it happen again. Will you promise me that?”
Karolina said to her, “Okay, I won’t do it anymore.”
In another video, when Karolina repeatedly failed her drill, Kabaeva snapped: ‘You don’t know how to throw or something? Are you doing this on purpose? What were you just doing? I don’t understand what’s going on.
‘Come here, please. Come here to me.
‘Do you understand what’s going on? What are you doing? You’re driving yourself crazy, you know that?
‘Nobody makes yourself crazy, you make yourself crazy. Do you want to train more? But this is not training.
‘This is working out mistakes. Psychologically and physically, because when you go to the competition, you will shake.
“And I’ll tell you, well, you know, you’ll remember. What you did bad, and not what you did good, because you’ve got more bad than good.”
After publicly reprimanding the girl, Kabaeva hugs her and tells her not to repeat her mistakes and “not to go crazy.”
Five months earlier, Kabaeva had threatened to send Karolina back to occupied Ukraine, shouting at her: “I don’t want to scare you, but if you perform like that again, I will personally pack your bags and you will go home.
Teenage gymnast Karolina Tarasova has won international medals at top competitions
The couple hugged after Kabeva lost her cool
Rumors of Putin’s love for Kabaeva first surfaced in 2008, but the Kremlin denied them
Kabeva is a rhythmic gymnast who won a gold medal at the Olympic Games
“Do you understand me? And stop crying.”
Russian gymnastics is known for its rigorous training techniques and Kabaeva herself underwent rigorous training as a child on her way to Olympic glory.
The Dossier Centre research agency reported this week on long-standing speculation that Kabaeva had two sons with Putin: Ivan, nine, and Vladimir (junior), five.
Astonishingly, the boys are said to have secretly had British and New Zealand citizens as governesses, but now, because of the 71-year-old Putin’s war, the Russian ruler is recruiting South African citizens to teach his heirs English.
The children reportedly live under constant surveillance by Federal Protective Service (FSO) officials.
“The brothers have little contact with their peers and see little of their parents, but they appreciate the rare moments they can spend with their father,” the news channel said.
They do not go to school and are educated in Putin’s palaces, just like the royal children of the last Russian tsar.
This week’s revelations are likely to infuriate Putin, who has kept the sons hidden and refuses to acknowledge his relationship with Olympic champion Kabaeva, which has existed since 2008, if not earlier.
Dossier Centre says it has found photos of the boys but is not publishing them for “ethnic reasons.” However, it believes the secret children’s extravagant lifestyle is of legitimate interest.
Ivan is Putin’s first son after three daughters: Maria, 39, Katerina, 37, and Luiza, 21.
Rumors of Putin’s love for Kabaeva first surfaced in 2008, but the Kremlin denied them.
“I have a private life that I don’t allow any interference in. It has to be respected,” he barked in an interview.
He detested ‘those who creep into the lives of others with their snotty noses and erotic fantasies’.
Kabeva appeared on the Russian program One Hundred Questions for Adults, where she was questioned about her private life by an audience of children.
In one segment, she was asked by a young boy if she had met her “ideal man,” to which she replied with a giggle, “I have.”
When asked who the mystery man in her life was, she would only say that he was “a very good person, a wonderful person,” though she added, “I love him very much.”
Kabaeva said: ‘Sometimes you feel so happy that you are even afraid.’
This happened after she posed almost naked for Maxim magazine and was described by a photographer as ‘full of sex’.