In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce a Russian scientist, businesswoman and former acrobatic dancer, Katerina Tikhonova née Putina. She's best-known for being the daughter of Vladimir Putin, and for making hefty profits after investing in AI and drone technologies.
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Katerina was born in Dresden, East Germany, but some years later, after the collapse of the Communist East German government, they moved to Leningrad (soon to be St. Petersburg). Putin then started working for former professor & soon to be mayor of Leningrad,Anatoly Sobchak.
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Later, during Russia's violent gang wars, Katerina and her sister were sent to Germany to safety, and were safeguarded by Putin's old friend, Matthias Warnig.
Perhaps due to the babysitting, Warnig was later given a big role in the Nord Stream pipeline project.
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Allegedly large part of Tikhonova's wealth came from his first husband, oligarch Kirill Shamalov. Their combined assets were worth around 2 billion USD in 2013. According to Bloomberg, the couple separated around 2015.
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In the midst of the 2022 Russian mobilization and the Great Exodus, Katerina's dad called those who leave Russia and turn to the West "scum and traitors to their homeland," continuing that "their mentality is there, not here, with our people".
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This hasn't stopped Katerina from traveling around Europe, though. Between 2015 and 2020, she traveled to Munich (and other places, including Sweden) more than 50 times with an entourage of allegedly armed bodyguard - unnoticed by German authorities.
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On most of her trips, she was meeting her boyfriend Igor Zelensky – one of Russia's most successful ballet dancers and former director of the Bavarian State Ballet. He has had a big role in promoting Russia's war in Ukraine, and he even appeared alongside Putin in Crimea.
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Tikhonova's hobbies include acrobatic rock'n'roll. In the video below, she's dancing in a dance competition in Krakow, a month after the annexation of Crimea.
Moscow even built a 20 million USD rock'n'roll dance school, probably to honor her legacy and "achievements".
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It appears that Putin has been grooming Katerina into success - for example, she's the director of Innopraktika, a $1.7 billion development project to create a science center at Moscow State University. She got her PhD in 2019, but it's not clear if she wrote the...
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... dissertation by herself or if it was completed by someone else, like his father's. In Jul 2022, Tikhonova was awarded with a job as a co-chairman in a powerful business lobby that's trying to beat the impact of international sanctions over the war in Ukraine.
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In Nov 2023, opposition channel Vjorstka and The Moscow Times reported that Innopraktika, led by Tikhonova, had bought 10% share of Russian drone manufacturer Geoskan. Geoskan produces drones for Russia's genocidal war against Ukraine & they are a lucrative business.
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At the early stages of the full-scale invasion, Russia was heavily dependent on Iranian Shahed suicide drones, but Putin's daughter investing into national companies is a clear sign that they have managed to ramp up their own production of drones.
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Starting in Nov 2023, Katerina started leading Russia's efforts to expand their influence in Africa.
Due to her involvement in Russian defense industry and her family ties to Putin, Tikhonova has been sanctioned by the US, Japan, New Zealand, the UK and the EU.
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As is tradition, Tikhonova has become extremely wealthy with his father's help and through Russian kleptocracy. As usual, she's also been keen on spending time in the "decadent West", like so many other wealthy Russians who apparently got bored of the glorious Russkiy Mir.
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