VLADIMIR PUTIN’S putative girlfriend was allegedly relocated to Siberia after sanctions made travel to the West nearly impossible.
Former Olympic gymnastics gold medallist Alina Kabaeva, 39, is said to have two children with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Putin’s alleged mistress is seldom seen in public and is thought to live in Switzerland in a home overlooking Lake Geneva that the despot built for her and her children.
However, since Russia’s brutal and bloody invasion of Ukraine last February, Western sanctions on those close to the Kremlin have made it increasingly difficult for Kabaeva to travel to the West.
She is also accused of crafting her own political career behind Putin’s throne in Moscow.
The two are said to have been dating since 2008, while the Russian president was still married to his first wife, Lyudmila Putina.
Three years prior, he was photographed presenting Kabaeva with a significant prize at the Kremlin.
Kabaeva is reported to have given birth in both Switzerland and Moscow in 2015.
Putin has never confessed to having a connection with Kabaeva, and state media prohibits any mention of the two.
Kabaeva was seen in Omsk, Siberia, after travelling there under tight security.
She was spotted at the Evgeniya Cup for juvenile athletes, which is some 2,000 miles away from the palaces she is said to share with Putin.
One of the dachas is tucked away in the forests of Valdai, northern Russia, while the other overlooks the Black Sea near Gelendzhik, fewer than 100 miles from the Ukrainian border, where Russian forces perpetrate uncountable crimes.
The gymnastics event featured juvenile competitors from unlawfully occupied portions of Ukraine, as well as pro-Putin governments like Belarus and Cuba.
It is unclear how long Kabaeva will stay in Siberia, although she is rumoured to be vying for a major governmental position.
She is thought to be preparing to become the Federation Council’s speaker of the country’s senate, a key position in Russia’s dictatorship.
Valentina Matviyenko, Putin’s most senior female official, now holds the position and is set to retire soon.
Last month, Kabaeva and Matviyenko were seen together at a gymnastics centre operated by the former athlete in the Black Sea city of Sochi, which also houses Putin’s holiday estate.
According to Maria Maksakova, a former dissident Russian MP, Kabaeva is aiming to put herself in a significant post in the event that Putin becomes too ill to lead or is pushed from office.
“About Kabaeva’s fate,” she told the Ukrainian news source Fakty Ukraine.
Maria added that Kabaeva “understands future threats” as well as the risk to her and her children if Putin steps down.
She went on: “[Kabaeva] also realises her sports career and medals will not save her from an unsightly possible fate.”
It comes after an ex-CIA analyst claimed that Putin’s death could lead to Russia being divided into a series of nuclear-armed mini-states ruled by brutal warlords.
Paul Goble told The Sun Online: “People are now much more open to the possibility that the Russian Federation might not be able to remain in one piece.”
He predicted that the world is facing “Yugoslavia with nukes” in reference to the bloody break-up of the former Balkan state.