- Vladimir Putin reportedly has a 31-year-old daughter named Katerina Tikhonova who is a dancer and a scientist.
- Tikhonova’s dance colleague told Reuters in an interview that he knew Tikhonova was Putin’s daughter.
- Rumors of Putin’s third daughter have been swirling around for years, but have never been publicly substantiated.
- A Russian journalist reported on Tikhonova in 2015, but his article has since mysteriously vanished from the internet.
Vladimir Putin has a 31-year-old daughter named Katerina Tikhonova who is a dancer and a scientist, according to one of her dance colleagues who confirmed the rumors on Sunday before backpeddling on his statements.
Rumors of Putin’s third daughter have been swirling around for years, but have never been publicly substantiated.
World Rock’n’Roll Confederation (WRRC) Vice President for Legal Affairs Manfred Mohab confirmed to Reuters during an interview at a dance event that Tikhonova is the younger daughter of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The WRRC is the professional body for aerobic dancers including Tikhonova.
Mohab told Reuters in the interview that he knew Tikhonova through their work together on the confederation’s presidium.
When asked whether he knew Tikhonova was Putin's daughter, he said: "Yes. I know her, yes of course." Asked a second time, he nodded and said: "Yes."
The Kremlin and Tikhonova did not respond to Reuters requests for comment.
After the story was published, Mohab phoned Reuters to clarify his statements, saying "I can't confirm that I know the daughter of Mr. Putin. I have nothing to do with them."
Asked why he had earlier said Tikhonova was Putin's daughter, Mohab said: "Believe me, it was so loud in the hall that a lot of the things I can't understand and other things I felt that I didn't understand right. So it's not sure that I gave you the right answers."
This is the second time that Reuters reported on Tikhonova's relationship to Putin before being publicly challenged post publication.
A Russian journalist reported on Tikhonova in 2015
Russian journalist Oleg Kashin said he had discovered a secret daughter of President Vladimir Putin's in a 2015 news article titled "She" (or «Она» in Russian). In the article, Kashin wrote he believes that two Russian women who share the same name are actually the same person: Katerina Putin.
The article has since been taken down.
Kashin connected an acrobatic dancer by the name of Katerina Tikhonova with a scientist and director of the company "Иннопрактика" by the same name that had been leading the expansion of Moscow State University.
"The biographic details of the three Katerinas - Putin, Tikhonova-dancer, Tikhonova-scientist ... are all connected into one biography, and yes, it is one woman," Kashin wrote in his now defunct report.
The piece stated the whereabouts of Tikhonova the dancer were uncertain - Kashin reported she was born in 1986 - and the past of Tikhonova the scientist was also cloudy, Kashin wrote.
Kashin made the connection between dancer and scientist through the fact that Tikhonova the scientist is also the vice president of Acrobatic Rock 'N' Roll.
"I do not know who that is," the press spokesman for Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Peskov, said of Tikhonova to Forbes Russia in 2015. "So far, a bunch of girls have come forth as Vladimir Putin's daughters."
Kashin also said that Tikhonova the scientist was reportedly named as a plus one of Kirill Shamalov, the son-in-law of the Russian President Vladimir Putin, during an event in Davos.
Kashin wrote: "let's consider this, just another form of the conspiracy."
Here is Tikhonova's dancing:
And then there is some of this:
And a little more:
Here is the full video of her routine:
And here's Tikhonova the scientist at the Acrobatic Rock 'N' Roll:
