Russia president Vladimir Putin has two sons with his lover gymnast
Alina Kabaeva
with whom Putin's relationship remained secret and subject of salacious gossips. Putin's sons are Ivan Putin, 9 and Vladimir Putin (junior), five and they live like royal princes, according to Dossier Centre, an independent investigative media outlet. The outlet has more details about the boys and their lives -- they have had British and New Zealand citizens as governesses but now Putin only recruits South African citizens to teach English to them.
'The sons of Vladimir Putin and Alina Kabaeva - Ivan Putin and Vladimir Putin (junior) - are isolated in residences, travelling on yachts and business jets,' said the report.
Putin's son do not attend schools and are taught inside palaces, they neither meet their parents much.
Reports said the revelations about Putin's male heirs won't please him as he kept his son and even their mother hidden, though his relationship with Olympic gold-medal winning Kabaeva existed since 2008 or probably before.
Ivan is Putin's first son after three daughters -- Maria 39, Katerina 37 and Luiza 21. Putin was earlier married to Lyudmila Putina whom he divorced in 2013.
Ivan Putin told his tutors and security guards that when he was born, he learnt later that Putin was very happy and shouted, 'Hurray! Finally! A boy!".
Reports said Ivan was born in 2015 at Sant'Anna maternity clinic in the Swiss city of Lugano. In 2019, the second son was in Moscow. “Both times, the decision on where the birth would take place was made by the president himself,” Dossier quoted one of its sources as saying.