Mistress Russia

Mistress Russia

By
Isabel van Brugen

On 4/22/22 at 9:45 AM EDT
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Russian President Vladimir Putin 's rumored mistress, Alina Kabaeva, has been pictured in public for the first time since Moscow's invasion of Ukraine began.
Kabaeva, 38, a former Olympic gymnast, made a rare public appearance this week when she attended the first rehearsal of a junior rhythmic gymnastics festival at Moscow's VTB Arena. The festival, set to take place on Saturday, is named after the athlete.
Images of Kabaeva attending the event were published on Thursday on Instagram by Ekaterina Sirotina, head coach of Russia's junior national rhythmic gymnastics team.
"First rehearsal day of the #FestivalofAlinaKabaeva," Sirotina, one of the directors of the festival, wrote.
Kabaeva, who rarely makes public appearances, was photographed with members of the gymnastics team. According to local media outlets, Kabaeva watched the gymnasts perform and offered advice.
She has two Olympic medals, 14 World Championship medals and 21 European Championship medals.
Putin, 69, who divorced his then-wife Lyudmila Aleksandrovna Ocheretnaya in 2013 after three decades of marriage, has denied being romantically involved with Kabaeva. The former gymnast has also declined to confirm rumors that she is or has been in a relationship with the Russian leader.
For years, rumors have circulated about an alleged relationship between the pair. Kabaeva has been dubbed as "Russia's First Mistress" and the "Secret First Lady."
In 2008, Russian newspaper, the Moskovsky Korrespondent , was shut down just days after reporting that Putin had plans to divorce Lyudmila for Kabaeva .
The former gymnast's last public appearance was in December 2021, months before Putin launched an invasion against Ukraine.
She was at the same venue, Moscow's VTB Arena, to participate in the opening ceremony of her rhythmic gymnastics tournament "Heavenly Grace," local media outlets reported at the time.
Dressed in an all-white suit, Kabaeva took to the podium at the opening ceremony to explain that she created her "experimental" tournament because she wanted her sport to be "spectacular" and "unique" again.
After the White House on April 6 announced that it was placing sanctions on Putin's two adult daughters , calls grew for Kabaeva to also be sanctioned .
Georgy Alburov, who works for the jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny , called for the former gymnast to be sanctioned "immediately."
"She is the beneficiary of Putin's corruption—her relatives get apartments and houses bought with money stolen from Russians. She is a member of Putin's inner circle, a member of his family who takes advantage of his position," he wrote on Twitter .
Newsweek has contacted Russia's Foreign Ministry for comment.
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In December 2014, Polyakova was recognized by Russian Orthodox Church leader Patriarch Kirill for her role in restoring the church of St. Sergius of Radonezh in Tsarskoye Selo.
russianchurch / YouTube

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The comments mark a shift in tone amid grave fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
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Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made the remarks ahead of talks with British counterpart Liz Truss in Moscow.
Foreign Minister Lavrov reiterated that although Russia did not want conflict, it was prepared to take steps to defend itself.

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Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has a secret mistress who wields significant influence within the ministry and owns several luxury properties, according to a new investigation by the Important Stories (iStories) investigative outlet published Tuesday.
Svetlana Polyakova, who has worked at the Foreign Ministry since 2014, has a “long-standing and very close” relationship with Lavrov, iStories reported, citing an unnamed source within the ministry.
iStories’ investigation is its first major report since being labeled a “foreign agent” last month, a move that came amid what Kremlin critics call an effort to stamp out dissenting voices ahead of this month’s parliamentary elections.
iStories reported that Polyakova and her family own properties in Russia and Britain worth over 1 billion rubles ($13.7 million) in addition to a fleet of luxury cars. These expensive assets don’t match up with Polyakova’s modest salary at the Foreign Ministry and at her other businesses, iStories said.
Polyakova has appointed several close friends to key Foreign Ministry positions, iStories reported, with officials who oppose these appointments forced to resign, according to an unnamed individual who was among those who quit. The investigative outlet also said it found that several of Polyakova’s friends identify her as “Svetlana Lavrova” in their phone contacts.
According to flight logs obtained by iStories, the couple has taken several trips together, including to the southern Russian resort city of Sochi where Polyakova allegedly owns a 50 million ruble ($685,750) apartment in an elite building on the Black Sea coast.
Polyakova also owns an apartment in one of Moscow’s most prestigious and expensive addresses, Prechistenka 13, which iStories estimated could be worth around $9.5 million.
Polyakova’s daughter, Polina, attended the Imperial College Business School in London and has since become a British resident, iStories reported. At age 21, Polina was reportedly able to sign a 999-year lease on an apartment in London’s upscale Kensington district for 4.4 million pounds, equal to more than 440 million rubles at the time of purchase.
The outlet was able to identify Polyakova through a December 2014 video from the consecration ceremony of a restored Russian Orthodox cathedral where she is indentified by her full name and as a Foreign Ministry employee. In another video , she can be seen alongside Lavrov and President Vladimir Putin on a tour of the cathedral.
“You need to go through a lot of approvals to be next to the president during such events with a limited number of participants, and the fact that Polyakova was included in the 'elite entourage' speaks to her special status,” iStories wrote.
In the Sept. 19 parliamentary vote, the ruling, pro-Kremlin United Russia party will seek to maintain its supermajority despite its low public approval ratings.
President Vladimir Putin named Lavrov and other figures with high approval ratings to head the list of United Russia party candidates on the ballot. Being on the list does not force Lavrov to take a seat in the legislature if elected.
iStories editor-in-chief Roman Anin prefaced the investigation by saying that the Russian ruling elite is afraid of independent investigative journalism that exposes widespread corruption hence why the Kremlin launched a “foreign agent” witch hunt.
“For many years, Sergei Lavrov, along with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, has been one of the country's most popular ministers, hence President Vladimir Putin asked both officials to enter the federal list of the United Russia party in the upcoming elections to the State Duma,” Anin wrote.

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His secret girlfriend has lots of secret wealth.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s longtime mistress has an estimated net worth of $100 million in “shadow wealth,” including swanky apartments and a yacht, despite her modest background, a trove of newly leaked documents reveal.
Svetlana Krivonogikh, 46, has been romantically linked with the Russian strongman since he was still deputy mayor of her hometown of St. Petersburg, and reportedly has a daughter with him.
But Krivonogikh — who grew up in a communal apartment — and other Putin cronies have been enriched through shell companies in the Virgin Islands and elsewhere, the Guardian reported.
In September 2003, an offshore company called Brockville Development Limited — through two other Panamanian companies — bought her a luxury fourth-floor apartment in Monte Carlo. She’s also acquired a flat in St. Petersburg and other valuable assets, according to the reporting.
Krivonogikh is far from alone in benefiting from a long-standing relationship with Putin. For years Russia’s inner circle has gravitated to Monaco, where lax tax laws and policies have made the waterfront city a favorite for the wealthy.
“It has become Moscow-on-Sea. The mentality is to show off,” local lawyer Dominique Anastasis told the Guardian. “Nobody asks where your money comes from. There’s no culture of checking. You don’t make a tax declaration.”
Among the wealthiest of the Russian-Monaco circle is Gennady Timchenko, a former Soviet bureaucrat who has been friends with Putin since the 1990s.
A former oil trader, Timchenko was given an oil export license by Putin in 1991, and later co-founded a Swiss-based oil export company named Gunvor — with the Russian president long rumored to be a silent partner in the firm.
Forbes reported Timchenko’s net worth at $22 billion, the outlet said.
Another member of Putin’s inner circle is Peter Kolbin, an old family friend, who took over as director of Leningrad-based International Petroleum Products in 2003 despite having few qualifications for the job.
Putin has denied ties to the lucrative companies detailed in the Pandora Papers .
But jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has referred to Putin as “the world’s richest man,” according to the Guardian.

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One evening in Moscow, Tanya (not her real name) found herself at a dinner table with a group of friends, most of them married couples. One of the men started to tell a story about the coda to a recent guys’ night out. He’d stumbled home the next morning to his wife and two children—a 2-year-old and an infant—to find that he’d forgotten his underwear. Everyone at the dinner table, including the man’s wife, laughed at the story: the hijinks!
Wandering spouses have become a common trope for the women of Moscow. “Men’s environment here pushes them towards cheating,” Tanya told me, adding that, these days, a boys’ night out in Russia often involves prostitutes. Tanya and her friends are young, educated, upper-middle-class Muscovites, but talk to any woman in Moscow, and, regardless of age, education, or income level, she’ll have a story of anything from petty infidelity to a parallel family that has existed for decades. Infidelity in Moscow has become “a way of life,” as another friend of mine put it—accepted and even expected.
This is quite a shift, given that 20 years ago an affair was considered a career-wrecking scand
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