Putin’s daughter’s home in Surrey revealed amid hunt for his billions

One of Vladimir Putin‘s daughters is rumoured to be among the billionaire Russian tenants at an exclusive Surrey estate, MailOnline can reveal today, as the National Crime Agency launches a hunt for the Kremlin strongman’s fortune in the UK.

Putin is alleged to be the world’s richest person with a hidden fortune of £200billion as he siphons off up to 50 per cent of every rouble made in Russia by the country’s most powerful people. 

Alexei Navalny has already revealed how he uses a network of lovers, children, KGB cronies, allies from his time as the Mayor of St Petersburg, university school buddies and childhood friends to hide his extraordinary wealth. Now the dissident Navalny languishes in a Siberian prison on trumped up charges after surviving a failed assassination attempt believed to have been masterminded by Putin.

Among his acolytes are his childhood friend’s butcher son who has an unexplained fortune of $500million, his cousin’s nephew also with an unexplained $500million fortune and his former KGB boss who is now head of one of Russia’s biggest oil companies. 

But as the National Crime Agency’s so-called ‘kleptocracy squad’ opens its hunt for the Putin’s assets in the UK, activists claim that one of his three daughters – two legitimate and the other the product of an affair with his cleaner now worth $100million – owns a property in a leafy Surrey estate, MailOnline can reveal today.

Most notoriously, Putin owns a vast palace on the shores of the Black Sea worth $1bn – including a $650 toilet brush – which has been financed by kickbacks from the allies he has installed at the top of Russia’s biggest oil and gas companies, according to Navalny.

But he is also believed to have wealth hidden across the globe in the form of property, businesses and investments held by trusted allies.

MailOnline can reveal rumours that one of Putin’s daughters may own a home Surrey’s exclusive St George’s Hill estate, where oligarch Oleg Deripaska is believed to have an art deco mansion. Locals have claimed that they have seen limousines with Russian flags speeding through the area in recent years and regular helicopters sorties to the site close to the golf course.

Lesia Scholey, a Surrey activist with Ukrainian heritage, told MailOnline that security has been stepped up around the estate in recent months – and claims public footpaths leading to a nearby fort have been blocked for locals, again blaming the Russians living there.

She said: ‘There have been rumours for years Putin’s daughter owns a house there and oligarchs certainly own properties there as they use as bolt holes. Russian money has all the protection UK law can get it, but residents lose out on their own areas and history’. The gated estate with tennis club and golf course is reportedly ‘increasingly under the microscope’ in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine. 

Mr Putin, 68, has two daughters Maria, 35, and Katerina, 34, from his marriage to Lyudmila Putina. The couple divorced in 2013. Love child Elizaveta was born in 2003, a product of a relationship with his cleaner Svetlana Krivonogikh. Ms Krivonogikh lives in Monaco with her daughter having amassed a $100million fortune shortly after she had her child.

A new ‘Kleptocracy Cell’ established in the National Crime Agency to target those trying to evade sanctions imposed in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is looking at whether Putin has stashed millions of pounds of his personal wealth in London.  

A NCA source told the Telegraph: ‘There are people working on it now. That is what the kleptocracy team will be spending its time on. The unit will be tracking down Putin’s money and that of his acolytes.’

Financier Bill Browder, once Russia’s biggest foreign investor who now calls himself Vladimir Putin’s ‘number one enemy’, says that the President’s business model is to cream off half of what the country’s 100-plus oligarchs make each year. Around 20 of those men are billionaires.

This approach was laid bare when in 2003 he ordered the arrest of Russia’s richest man, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who fell out with Putin. He was put on trial and jailed in a televised case where he was forced to sit in a cage. According to Mr Browder the oligarchs went to Putin to ask what he wanted from them to avoid the same fate, to which the President allegedly replied ’50 per cent’. Mr Browder said: ‘He wasn’t saying 50 per cent for the Russian government or the presidential administration of Russia, but 50 percent for Vladimir Putin personally’. 

The Russian president insists he only earns £70,000-a-year from his state salary plus a KGB pension – and holds no assets in his name with the Kremlin telling the country on state TV last year: ‘Putin has no need for luxury’. 

These are the people Navalny claims are helping Putin hide his billions: 

Svetlana Krivonogikh – Putin’s former cleaner turned mistress who had his love child and is now worth $100million

The Russian leader is said to have had an affair with Svetlana Krivonogikh and fathered Elizaveta, now 19, during his first term as president.

His former mistress, 45, is now a multi-millionaire who owns a nightclub famed for erotic shows, news site Project reported.

Miss Krivonogikh is said to have worked as a cleaner in a shop as a teenager before going to university.

She would accompany Mr Putin on journeys in the late 1990s when she was in her 20s. The economics graduate is now said to have £8million of shares in Bank Rossiya, having suddenly come into money in 2000.

Miss Krivonogikh also owns the Leningrad Centre club and is said to be worth as much as $100million (£75m).

The Pandora Papers revealed that Krivonogikh – whose vast fortune arrived around the time of her daughter’s birth – is the owner of a $4m apartment at the Monte Carlo Star, located underneath Monte Carlo’s famed casino.

Krivonogikh owns the apartment through a chain of shell companies located in the British Virgin Islands and Panama, the documents have revealed.

Former neighbours at her flat in St Petersburg said she had a secret wealthy benefactor referred to as ‘Daddy’. Afterwards she and her mother quickly moved to an upmarket property in the city.

Love child Elizaveta was born in 2003, it was claimed. The relationship supposedly ended around the time Putin began to be linked to Olympic gold-winning gymnast Alina Kabaeva, now 37 and head of a pro-Kremlin media company.

Mr Putin, 68, has two daughters Maria, 35, and Katerina, 34, from his marriage to Lyudmila Putina. The couple divorced in 2013.

Questioned about the relationship with Miss Krivonogikh, Mr Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: ‘I’ve been asked about this last name. But I’ve never heard anything about it and I don’t know anything.’

Alina Kabaeva – The secret mistress smuggled into Switzerland as Russia invaded Ukraine

Vladimir Putin’s rumoured secret lover Alina Kabaeva, 38, who is paid a £7.5million-a-year salary.

Last year she dramatically reappeared in public for the first time in more than two-and-a-half years. 

Her disappearance for almost three years fuelled rumours that she had given birth to twins in a Moscow hospital, despite official denials of a relationship with Putin, 68, who abhors intrusion into his private life.

Kabaeva appeared on TV two days after she issued rare statements lambasting the judges in her old sport of rhythmic gymnastics for which she had won an Olympic Gold, was twice world champion and three times European champion. 

She heads a major pro-Kremlin media holding but vanished from view in October 2018 amid unconfirmed suggestions that she had a young family.

Rumours first linked her romantically to Putin, as long ago as 2008 when she was a pro-Kremlin MP, and despite denials many believe her to be Russia’s secret first lady.

Tabloid Express Gazeta recounted in May: ‘She literally vanished.

‘After the giving-birth-to-twins reports nothing was heard about Kabaeva, as if she had disappeared.

‘Alina is not giving interviews, nor attending social events, nor participating in any TV programmes.

‘One can only guess what is happening in her private life.’

Putin – who announced his divorce from wife Lyudmila, a former Aeroflot stewardess in 2013 – has previously said: ‘I have a private life in which I do not permit interference. It must be respected.’

He deplored ‘those who with their snotty noses and erotic fantasies prowl into others’ lives’.

Kabaeva is on record as saying she had met a man who ‘I love very much’, gushing: ‘Sometimes you feel so happy that you even feel scared.’

Vladimir Kolbin – Son of Putin’s oldest friend who went from butcher to having $550million in his bank accounts

Vladimir – believed to be named after the President – is the son and heir to the fortune of Petr Kolbin, a childhood friend of Putin whose family owned a house in the village of Imenitsy that Putin’s parents rented when he was growing up.

Kolbin initially worked as a butcher, but in 2001 – shortly after Putin became president – his fortunes suddenly changed. 

He went into business and prospered, largely thanks to deals with some of Russia’s biggest state-owned firms.

He is said to have opened several overseas bank accounts that contained a fortune of $550million.

But it is not clear that he actually had access to that money. Alexei Navalny, via his deputy Leonid Volkov, has accused Kolbin – who died in 2018 – as being a proxy for the Russian President.

‘Putin is smart. You can’t expect to find an account in his name,’ Volkov previously said. ‘But if you see ‘Kolbin’ you can be sure as hell this is Putin’s money.’

His father once admitted Petr worked for Putin. Petr is said to have replied: ‘Daddy, don’t clog your brains with what you don’t need to know’.

Vladimir has been named by supporters of Navalny as the beneficiary of his father’s estate. 

Igor Sechin – Rosneft chief known as ‘Putin’s Darth Vader’ and the ‘scariest man in Russia’

Sechin is the boss of state-owned oil giant Rosneft, the largest publicly owned oil and gas corporation in the world.

The 61-year-old is a close ally of Vladimir Putin, and one of the most powerful people in Russia.

He acted as deputy prime minister under Mr Putin from 2008 to 2012, and he has already been sanctioned by the US and EU.

Last week his £86million yacht, the Amore Vero, was seized in the French port of La Ciotat, near Marseilles, in a night-time raid on the dockyard.

The UK Government said he is a ‘prominent Russian businessman with close personal ties’ to the Russian president, and he runs a company ‘of strategic significance’ to the Russian government.

The taxes on the company brought in £10billion for the Russian government in 2020, enough to fund about two-fifths of the annual military budget.

Kirill Shamalov – Putin’s ex-son-in-law who lost half his $2billion fortune after divorcing President’s daughter

Ex-husband of Vladimir Putin’s second daughter Katerina Tikhonova, Shamalov is also the son of one of the Russian President’s closest confidantes. His father is Nikolai Shamalov, who started as a dentist before the fall of the Soviet Union before becoming close to Putin when he entered St Peterburg politics in the 1990s.

 Sahamalov senior was a member of Putin’s ‘ dacha cooperative’ closed gate community and became one of Russia’s richest men when he and fellow crony Yuri Kovalchuk acquired became owners of Bank Rossiya.

After graduating from Saint Petersburg State University, Nikola was given an executive position at Gazprom-Media aged 25. He married Katerina, Putin’s professional scientist daughter, in 2013 at a ceremony at Igora ski resort which is also allegedly part of the Russian strongman’s empire.

Kirill’s career advanced when he joined Russian oil company Sibur and became a vice president before being promoted to deputy CEO of the company in his early thirties. 

An offshore company owned by Kirill acquired a 3.8% stake in the company for $100 shortly after and his total wealth was allegedly more than $2bn. The other major shareholders in Sibur are also Putin cronies including Gennady Timchenko.

He and Katerina separated n 2018 amid rumours that the divorce cost him half of his wealth, but Alexander Navalny claims he is still involved in the shadowy network of financial transactions that hides Putin’s wealth from the world.

Alexander Plekhov –  Scientist accused of helping handle offshore accounts containing Putin’s billions

Alexander Plekhov is a prominent Russian businessman and friend of Vladimir Putin.  

Plekhov is in the health care business, and business has been booming thanks to the pandemic because he runs a company called Vital Development that produces reagents for medical tests.      

His other business interests are less clear – although there are allegations he is registered manager of the offshore companies owned by Sergey Roldugin, who according to the Panama Papers, is holding Putin’s secret billions. 

There are also claims that he is behind billions of rubles transferred to Putin’s supposed vineyards. 

Gennady Timchenko – Oligarch nicknamed ‘Gangrene’ who plays ice hockey with pal Putin

Gennady Timchenko, nicknamed ‘gangrene’ by his critics, is a one-time Soviet bureaucrat with an estimated fortune of £17.4billion.

The vast sum includes several private jets and a 130ft superyacht, named after his wife Lena.

The 69-year-old father of three, a citizen of Russia, Finland and Armenia, has been friends with Vladimir Putin since the early 1990s when he was an oil trader in St Petersburg.

The Russian president, then head of the city’s foreign relations committee, granted Mr Timchenko a licence to export oil. The ice hockey fanatic co-founded Gunvor, which went on to handle close to a third of all Russian oil exports.

In 2014 the US government sanctioned Mr Timchenko, saying his ‘activities in the energy sector have been directly linked to Putin’. Mr Putin is said to have investments in Gunvor. The firm has denied this.

Nikolai Tokarev – Ex-KGB chief who served with Putin in East Berlin before working for Yeltsin and running an oil firm

Nikolia Tokarev was recruited into the KGB at the same time as Vladimir Putin and was allegedly close to him while studying at the spy service’s elite training facility for agents. They also served together in East Germany, where Tokarev was Putin’s boss in Dresden, during the dying days of the Warsaw Pact.

He retired from the KGB’s successor organisation the FSB as a major general.

After the Communist regime fell apart, Tokarev worked in Boris Yeltsin’s ‘Presidential Property Department’ in the mid-1990s where Putin was also posted during his rise within the regime. 

He then secured a position at Russian state-owned oil company Zarubezhneft and steadily rose within its ranks before being appointed president of oil pipeline company Transneft in 2007. He was also appointed to the board of directors of Rosneft in 2009.

Alexander Navalny implicated him in Putin’s shadowy financial web when he exposed how one of Tokarev’s companies pays 100million roubles a month for ‘rent’ of the Russian president’s billion-dollar palace on the Black Sea.

Yuri Kovalchuk – ‘Sponsor’ of President’s secret palace and ‘keeper of Putin’s purse’

Yuri Kovalchuk is nicknamed Putin’s ‘main purse’ and ‘sponsor of palaces’.

He is reported to have put up the land for a secret northern palace allegedly built for Vladimir Putin, revealed by the anti-Kremlin team working with jailed his foe Alexei Navalny.

Hidden from prying Russians amidst the majestic forest and lakes of Valdai, it boasts a three-storey spa complex with a ‘personal beauty parlour’ for the strongman called the ‘temple to his asceticism’.

Two floors are hidden underground replete with a cryo chamber for extreme cold therapy, and a mud bath, in a 75,350sqft relaxation facility.

There is also a float pool – ‘a large bath or capsule filled with very salty water, that is, you lie in it and seem to float on the surface, as if in zero gravity’.

‘There is a fully equipped cosmetologist’s office, next to a dentist’s surgery,’ claimed Navalny’s team.

The mysterious complex with several large residences is partly owned by the Kremlin and partly via a company called Prime by Putin’s associate, billionaire Kovalchuk. 

The 69-year-old is also alleged to be one of the President’s links to Alina Kabaeva, the former gold-medal winning Olympic gymnast who is reported to be his long-term girlfriend, now hiding in Switzerland.

Kovalchuk is also reported to help support ex-mistress Svetlana Krivonogikh, who is reportedly the mother of his love child, now aged 19.  

Ilgam Ragimov – Azerbajani lecturer who is one of Putin’s oldest friends and owns several Moscow shopping malls

Ragimov, a short round man in his 60s, is seen walking the streets of Baku alone and lectures in law at the local university.

But the  Azerbaijani businessman is also reputedly one of Russia’s most important men, and a friend of Putin from university.

One photograph exists of them together hugging as young men, and they used to like to wrestle.

But despite his quiet life, and working from a small office in Baku, he is the co-owner of several Moscow shopping centre and several luxury hotels.

He rarely gives interviews, but admits he and Putin have been ‘friends for forty years’.   

Viktor Khmarin – Hydro-energy chief who studied martial arts with Putin

Victor Khmarin is another university friend of Putin’s, who became a beneficiary of the British Virgin Islands-registered offshore Luciano Services Corp. 

Khmarin was also appointed general director of Russia’s major hydroelectric company, RusHydro.  

He became close to Putin having studied martial arts with him, and is the husband of Putin’s cousin. 

Khmarin’s companies have also historically been one of the largest suppliers of equipment for Gazprom.    

Nikolai Egorov – Academic who studied with Putin in St Petersburg known as the ‘mysterious professor’

Nikolai Egorov, Putin’s former classmate, now professor of St Petersburg State University, is a shareholder in the New Stream group which owns the Antipino oil refinery.  

He graduated from the law department at Leningrad State University the same year as Putin in 1975. 

Egorov is now a professor at this university and also practises law. He avoids contact with journalists who call him a ‘mysterious professor.’   

Despite being an academic, Egorov was mysteriously locked in a legal battle with Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller for influence in Mezhregiongaz, a 100% subsidiary of Gazprom.

As a result, Egorov’s protege Nikolai Gornovsky then went on to head that company. 

Mikhail Shelomov – Putin’s shipping clerk cousin’s son who now owns assets worth half a billion dollars but denies his new wealth has anything to do with the President

The son of one of Vladimir Putin’s cousins, Mikhail lived in obscurity as a clerk for the Sovcomloft shipping company based in St Petersburg. 

He now owns assets worth half a billion dollars acquired through a mysterious company called Accept since 2004. His companies own eight per cent of the shares in Rossiya Bank and half of a new race track built near St Petersburg. 

Alexander Navalny has also claimed that Shelomov pumps money into Igora, the ski resort beloved of Putin and partially owned by his mistress Svetlana Krivonogikh. 

Despite is huge fortune, Shelomov has told journalists his newfound wealth has nothing to do with the fact he is related to Putin.

Gelendzhik – Putin’s £1billion palace on the Black Sea complete with ‘lap-dancing room and ice hockey rink’ 

Grander than Versailles and filled with all the trappings of the super-rich, the Gelendzhik Palace on the Black Sea coast has long been rumoured to secretly belong to the Russian President.

The palace is located in a luxury development that was already home to the country’s most-expensive house – but has come to overshadow all of its neighbours – both in size and notoriety.

The property, which is said to have started construction in 2005, is set in 15 acres of grounds and surrounded by a security wall. The estate also includes a helipad, a football field, a forest and landscaped gardens, compete with a pond. 

The owner is simply listed as the ‘Russian Federation’ while the construction was carried out by a company called ‘Property-V’ – leading to speculation that it is owned by somebody high up in the government, and possibly Putin himself.

Pictures alleged to show inside the 91,500sqft of living space display an opulent lifestyle, including a swimming pool surrounded by Corinthian-style columns, a lap-dancing room and an underground bunker area complete with an ice hockey rink.

The images said to be of the palace were released in 2021 along with an extraordinary 90-minute investigation into Putin’s wealth by supporters of Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader and Putin’s nemesis, who continues to taunt the Kremlin despite being held behind bars.

 Navalny’s dossier, the furnishings include a £200,000 leather sofa — more than the average price of a two-bedroom flat in Russia.

According to Navalny, the construction costs reached a staggering £1 billion — and all of it, he alleges, was financed with illicit funds provided by Mr Putin’s cronies and inner circle.

‘Nothing that is listed there as my property belongs to me or my close relatives, and never did,’ Putin said when questioned about it in 2021.

 Putin is notoriously secretive in his private life, refusing to even confirm long-standing rumours about who his children are, so it is unlikely the palace will ever be definitively linked to him.

Who are Putin’s girls? The rock ‘n roll dancing scientist and paediatric doctor daughters of the Russian president taking the world towards WW3

Russian President Vladimir Putin is currently one of the world’s most scrutinised men amid his country’s invasion of Ukraine.

The strongman has been at the centre of global media attention since Russian troops marched across the border late last month, and has made headlines for years as ruler of the world’s largest country and a key figure of international politics.

But despite his penchant for long-winded interviews, press conferences and televised speeches, the 69-year-old has always remained ruthlessly private about his family life – in particular, his children.

Putin has never publicly acknowledged having any kids, though it is common knowledge that he shares two daughters with his ex-wife.

But many have speculated that the former head of the KGB also shares a lovechild with a woman once dubbed ‘the most flexible woman in Russia’, while others say he fathered another child with a former cleaner-turned-multimillionaire part-owner of a Russian bank.

Putin has previously said: ‘I have a private life in which I do not permit interference. It must be respected,’ adding ‘those who with their snotty noses and erotic fantasies prowl into others’ lives’. 

Maria Faassen 

At 36, Maria Faassen is Putin’s first child and the eldest daughter of two shared with his ex-wife, Lyudmila Putina, from whom he separated in 2013 after 30 years of marriage.

Putina, who was born Lyudmila Shkrebneva, met Putin in the early 1980s while they were both studying at the then Leningrad State University.

The couple married on 28 July 1983, with Maria being born in April 1985. 

Maria – born Maria Vladimirovna Putina and also known as Maria Vorontsova – is named after Putin’s mother, Maria Ivanovna Shelomova, and seemed destined to be a scientist from the start.

She showed great aptitude for the sciences at school as a young child in East Germany and as a teen in Moscow, before going on to study biology at St Petersburg State University.

After completing her studies, she entered medical school in Moscow, and has since become a paediatric endocrinologist and one of Russia’s top experts on dwarfism. 

She recently appeared on Russian state TV to discuss her research on genetic testing and efforts to combat rare genetic diseases in children. 

She is married to Dutch businessman Jorrit Faassen with whom she shares a child – making the Russian President a grandfather.

Katerina Tikhonova 

Katerina Tikhonova, born Yekaterina Vladimirovna Putina, is the second child of the Russian President and the younger sister of Maria.

Katerina dropped the surname Putina, opting instead to take on the patronymic surname of her maternal grandmother, Yekaterina Tikhonovna Shkrebneva.

She was born in August 1986 and attended the same schools in East Germany and Moscow as her sister, but took up a drastically different set of interests.

Although the 35-year-old is now a director for the Institute for Mathematical Research of Complex Systems at Moscow State University and also studied at St Petersburg State University, Katerina is arguably best-known for her success as a rock ‘n roll dancer.

Katerina became a member of Russia’s Council for the Development of Physical Culture and Mass Sports back in 2019, and has also played a key role in the development of acrobatic rock ‘n roll dancing – something which has long been a niche discipline.

For years, Putin’s second daughter served as the vice president for expansion and marketing at the World Rock and Roll Confederation (WWRC) – the body which organises competitions in the discipline worldwide.  

Katerina was previously married to Kirill Shamalov – part-owner of SIBUR Holding, a Russian petrochemicals company – and son of the co-owner of one of Russia’s largest banks.

The couple divorced in 2018, when it was revealed that they shared assets of around $2 billion. 

Luiza Rozova

Luiza Rozova, 18, has never formally been acknowledged by the Russian President, but many believe she is Putin’s third child.

Luiza is the daughter of cleaner-turned-multimillionaire Svetlana Krivonogikh, 45, now a part-owner of a major Russian bank and one of the country’s wealthiest women. 

The Russian leader is thought to have had an affair with Krivonogikh, and Rozova herself has admitted to Russian GQ that she ‘probably looks similar’ to a young Putin.

Krivonogikh has never commented on claims that her daughter was fathered by the Kremlin strongman. 

Rozova, who had 84,000 followers on Instagram, stopped publicly posting five months ago when suspicions of Russian troop build-up on the Ukrainian border were first raised, triggering the suspicion that Putin had gagged her – though her account remained visible until last week. 

Now a message says in Russian: ‘User not found.’ 

Some believe that Rozova is not Putin’s youngest child, however.

The Russian President has for years been embroiled in controversy over his alleged relationship with Alina Kabaeva – a Russian Olympic gymnast who was once dubbed ‘Russia’s most flexible woman’.

Kabaeva is one of the most decorated gymnasts in rhythmic gymnastic history, with 2 Olympic medals, 14 World Championship medals, and 25 European Championship medals.

Many Russians saw her as the reason for the breakup of Putin’s marriage to Lyudmila, mother of the President’s first two daughters. 

Alina has long been associated with Putin – they have been pictured at countless events together, and Kabaeva once spoke of a mystery man who she said she ‘loves very much.

The gymnast was pictured pregnant in 2015, sparking rumours she now bears Putin’s child.

Source: Daily Mail