Alina Kabaeva and Vladimir Putin at an occasion in Kremlin – Kremlin.ru
The Russian gymnast believed to be Vladimir Putin’s lover says she was along with her “excellent man” in an unearthed interview.
Alina Kabaeva and the Russian president have by no means admitted to being romantically concerned, regardless of persistent allegations since 2008 when a Moscow-based newspaper first reported the romance.
That 12 months, it seems Ms Kabaeva, a celebrated athlete, did as soon as publicly talk about her relationship with out naming the president.
Within the 2008 video, first reported by the Mail On-line, Ms Kabaeva, who was 24-years-old on the time, takes questions from an viewers of younger Russians.
A beaming Ms Kabaeva
4 years earlier, she had received a gold medal on the Athens Olympics, a victory that made her one of the vital well-known folks in Russia.
“Have you ever met your excellent man?” a younger boy requested her in the course of the audience-led interview.
Ms Kabaeva pauses for a number of seconds, swivels in her chair and performs with a pen earlier than declaring: “I’ve met him.” She giggles earlier than saying that she was “so glad”.
One other lady asks who the thriller boyfriend is.
“A person, an excellent man, an awesome man,’ Ms Kabaeva stated, including: “I really like him very a lot.”
Putin and Ms Kabaeva – Kremlin.ru
In 2008, Putin was nonetheless married to his first spouse, Lyudmila Ocheretnaya. They didn’t divorce for an additional six years.
Within the video with the younger Russians, Ms Kabaeva was additionally requested if she would ever steal a married man away from his spouse and household.
“If a person is already taking a look at one other lady and is already speaking to her then the issue within the household has already occurred,” she says. “In that case, there might be no good in that household.”
Requested in regards to the final reward she gave her thriller man was, Ms Kabaeva stated: “An Alaska coat, a coat with fur, very lovely”.
This week, The Challenge, a Russian opposition media outlet, reported that Ms Kabaeva, now 39, and Mr Putin, 70, lived collectively in a secret palace with their youngsters on the shores of Lake Valdai, 250 miles north-west of Moscow.
After retiring from gymnastics in 2006, Ms Kabaeva turned an MP for Putin’s United Russia occasion earlier than turning into a director at a personal media firm.
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The Nationwide Media Group is the biggest non-public media firm in Russia and helps the Kremlin challenge its propaganda, together with its insistence that it’s combating Nazis in Ukraine.
Final 12 months, Ms Kabaeva hosted a number of rallies and talking engagements in assist of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
The grounds of the lakeside palace the place Ms Kabaeva and Putin are thought to dwell include a number of buildings, together with a big mock Russian dacha, a swimming pool and a sauna. Photographs of the inside confirmed a glass-topped eating room desk set in a spherical room and surrounded by golden armchairs.
Golden eating room
The Challenge additionally documented how Putin had allegedly created a £100 million property empire for his lover by way of a community of corporations primarily based in Cyprus.
In Could, Britain positioned sanctions on Ms Kabaeva due to what the Overseas Workplace known as her “shut private relationship” with Putin.