Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) shakes hands with famous Russian gymnasts Alina Kabayeva (C) and Svetlana Khorkina (L).Photo: SERGEI CHIRIKOV/AFP via Getty
Earlier this week, Kabaeva, 39, was among the latest Russian figures to be subject to economic retaliation from the U.S. amid Russia’sinvasion of Ukraine.
In a statement issued Tuesday, theU.S. Treasury Department described Kabaevaas “a former member of the State Duma,” saying she had been designated for economic sanction due to “having been a leader, official, senior executive officer, or member of the board of directors of the Government of the Russian Federation.”
The department described Kabaeva as having “a close relationship to Putin” and being “the current head of the National Media Group, a pro-Kremlin empire of television, radio, and print organizations.”
From left, front: Vladimir Putin’s daughter Maria with him and mother Ludmila in 2007.ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP via Getty
What the statement left out is that Kabaeva is 69-year-old Putin’s rumored girlfriend, with some reports even suggesting that the two are engaged and have children together.
Putin is infamously tight-lipped about his personal life, and since he controls both the military and the state-run press, many of those details are near-impossible to nail down.
The Kremlin has confirmed a few things, including that Putin, a former agent in the KGB, married Lyudmila Shkrebneva in 1983 and that the couple had two daughters: Mariya and Yekaterina, also known as Masha and Katya.
But in 2008, a Russian news outlet reported that Putin, then 56, had divorced Shkrebneva and gotten engaged to a 24-year-old Olympic gold medal-winning rhythmic gymnast named Alina Kabaeva (who was stripped of some of her medals aftertesting positive for a banned substance in 2002).
The newspaper that reported the story, meanwhile, mysteriously shut down shortly thereafter, according to theTimes.
Five years later, in 2013, the Kremlin finally confirmed that Putin and his first wife had divorced.
Meanwhile, the speculation regarding his relationship with Kabaeva persisted.
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She has made at least one public appearance since, though — at an April gymnastics exhibition in Moscow, where she delivered remarks in front of a backdrop comprised of “Zs,” which has become a symbol of support among some for the Russian invasion.
source: people.com
