Russian President Vladimir Putin is reportedly preparing his secret nine-year-old son to take over power, amid growing concerns about his health.
A new shock claim suggests that the 71-year-old leader is planning a family succession. It's believed that Putin will soon bring his two older daughters, Maria and Katerina, into his government as potential "regents" if his health deteriorates.
However, his ultimate plan is to continue ruling Russia until his hidden son - named Ivan - turns 21, at which point he'll hand over control of the Kremlin to him. This would require a change to the Russian constitution, which currently states that the president must be at least 35 years old.
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This strange theory comes from Mark Feigin, a 52-year-old Russian lawyer, former MP, and political commentator who once represented the anti-Putin punk band Pussy Riot. He discussed this in an interview with Ukrainian TV host Dmitry Gordon, who recently interviewed Boris Johnson in Kyiv.
Feigin claimed that Putin has two sons with his long-term now-ex-lover, gymnast Alina Kabaeva, 40. One son is nine and is rumoured to have been born in Sant' Anna's Clinic in Lugano, Switzerland.
The other son, known as Vladimir junior, was reportedly born four years later in 2019 in Moscow. The same Swiss-based Soviet-born doctor, Dr Natalia Thiebaud Kondratieva, 63, oversaw the delivery. Dr Kondratieva passed away suddenly a year ago, just four days before her involvement in the births of Kabaeva's children was revealed.
Feigin suggests that Russia is too "sexist" for Putin to hand over to his two elder daughters Maria Voronteva, 38, or Katerin Tikhonova, 37. The same would apply to his secret daughter Luiza Rozova - a child he shared with cleaner-turned-multi-millionaire bank owner Svetlana Krivonogikh, 48.
Luiza, who turns 21 this week, is invisible but believed to be studying in a Western capital during Putin's war in Ukraine. Putin, who faces re-election this month without any serious rivals, aims at "a dynastic transfer of power within a totalitarian system," according to Feigin. "This is important to him," he said.
"In the next 12 years, he must create conditions in the system under which no one except his heirs can be at the head of the state.. He has two daughters almost 40, who he will certainly bring into power, he needs them. "
He predicted that Maria Vorontsova, 38, who has been in the limelight recently, would be made health minister after the election. Her younger sister Katerina Tikhonova, 37, could be made education minister, Feigin suggested.
He could "overnight" change the constitution to allow a royal-style succession by a son, 18, rather than wait for the age of 35, said Feigin. "For Putin this option, of course, is the best," he said."
"To give to his son, who will sit on the throne, even if it is some group of regents consisting of his daughters, or others . . . somehow they will formalise it."
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