There is a particularly well-kept secret in Russia…that of Vladimir Putin’s family. For more than 20 years, the Kremlin has ardently protected the privacy of the man who ordered the invasion of Ukraine. We know that he was married for almost 30 years to a certain Lioudmila Ocheretnaya, a former air hostess, before divorcing in 2013. And, even if the Russian head of state never officially confirmed it , we also know that he has two daughters, Katerina Tikhonova and Maria Vorontsova, respectively a mathematician and a former professional acrobatic rock dancer and endocrinologist. For the rest… The assumptions are going well.
But for fifteen years now, a name often comes up in his entourage: Alina Kabaeva. This 38-year-old former Russian gymnast, gold medalist in rhythmic gymnastics at the Athens Olympics, has even become his wife in secret, according to several international media. A relationship denied by Vladimir Putin himself in 2008 when the Russian daily Moskovsky Korrespondent announces with great fanfare the divorce of the latter and his remarriage with the gymnast. The editor-in-chief, Grigori Nekhorochev, was also fired in the process, the newspaper’s management citing “financial difficulties”.
In the sights of Brussels
Born in 1983 in Tashkent, capital of Uzbekistan then a republic of the Soviet Union, to a professional footballer father who spent time with Kazakh and Ukrainian clubs and a Russian mother, a basketball player, who was a member of the national of Uzbekistan, Alina Kabaeva is now in the sights of the European Union. According to a document from the European External Action Service seen by AFP, she is today “closely associated with President Vladimir Putin” and “the chairman of the board of directors of the National Media Group (NMG), a holding company that owns significant shares in almost all major Russian federal media outlets that reproduce Russian government propaganda”.
Brussels therefore proposed on Thursday to sanction the Russian for her role in the “propaganda” of the Kremlin and her “close” ties with President Vladimir Putin. Alina Kabaeva is now part of a new list of personalities threatened with an EU entry ban and an asset freeze, as part of a sixth EU sanctions package currently under discussion, in response to the war in Ukraine. The unanimity of the Twenty-Seven is however required for the adoption of such sanctions.
According to The Wall Street Journal, which quotes US officials, Alina Kabaeva is described by a confidential US intelligence report as a beneficiary of Vladimir Putin’s fortune. Three other people, working for the state agency Ria Novosti and qualified as “propagandists”, are also on the list submitted to member states on Wednesday by the service of the head of diplomacy of the European Union Josep Borrell.
gymnastics star
In a survey published this week, Paris Match tells how this young Russian who tested positive in 2001 for furosemide, a drug that masks doping products, found herself propelled among the most influential women in the country. Then an undisputed star of rhythmic gymnastics, she met Vladimir Poutine at the age of 18 in the Kremlin, when he decorated her for these titles of European champion and world champion.
But according to an American diplomatic telegram revealed by WikiLeaks, she would be truly linked to Vladimir Putin since 2006 and his break with a police captain named David Museliani. Evidenced by his meteoric rise during this period. A year later, she was elected deputy of the Duma and took the vice-presidency of the youth commission. Then, in 2008, she was appointed chairman of a supervisory body of the National Media Group (NMG), the largest press group in Russia, before taking over as head of the board of directors in 2014.
So, three months after the start of the war in Ukraine, why wasn’t Alina Kabaeva subject to Western sanctions earlier? According to the wall street journalthe American authorities would have removed it at the last moment from the lists of people to be sanctioned, for fear that Putin would “take it personally” and “respond aggressively, causing a further escalation in tensions”.