The secret lives of Maria Vorontsova and Katerina Tikhonova, Vladimir Putin’s daughters

The Russian war on Ukraine continues to rage on Day 44 and shows no signs of abating. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, as of 3 April, has recorded 3,455 civilian casualties in the war-ravaged country: 1,417 killed and 2,038 injured.

In response to Russia’s brutal attacks, especially in the recent days in Kyiv’s suburb of Bucha, the United States and the European Union has announced new sanctions, including against the two mysterious daughters of Russian president Vladimir Putin, along with other individuals, including political figures, tycoons and their family members, and several propagandists.

The United States announced the latest measures against Maria Vorontsova, 36, and Katerina Tikhonova, 35.

Here’s a better look at who is Maria and Katerina.

Putin’s daughters

Putin has always kept his family out of the media, and little is known of Tikhonova, a businesswoman, and Vorontsova, a doctor, both children of his ex-wife, Lyudmila Putina, from whom he divorced in 2013.

The Russian strongman has always been very private about his personal life. In 2008, he was quoted by New York Times as saying, “Society has the right to know how public figures live. But even in this case, there is a limit: private life, which no one has the right to trespass. I have always disliked those who, with their infected noses and erotic fantasies, break into other people’s private affairs.”

There are only two instances when he has spoken about his children, although he hasn’t named them. In a 2015 press conference, he stunned all by talking about his offspring. “They studied only at Russian universities. I am proud of them. They continue to study and work,” he had said.

Then in 2017, Reuters reported Putin as saying he wanted his grandchildren to have a normal childhood.

“My daughters are involved in science and in education. They don’t interfere in anything, including politics. They live normally,” he said.

Maria Vorontsova, who also goes as Maria Fassen, is Putin’s first child and the eldest daughter.

According to a Daily Mail report, 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 since then become a paediatric endocrinologist and one of Russia’s top experts on dwarfism.

Other news reports have stated that Maria is married to Dutch businessman Jorrit Faassen and resides with her family in the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. However, her current whereabouts are unknown.

In 2019, the elusive daughter had given an interview with state-owned TV channel Russia 1 during which she dropped interesting information about her life. In her interview, she revealed she is a co-owner and top executive at Nomeko, a new, multi-million medical firm focused on cancer research.

Located near St Petersburg, Nomeko is said to be the biggest private investment project in healthcare in the country. According to the BBC, Vorontsova reportedly has a 20 per cent stake along with four other owners.

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

Though she went to the same schools as her elder sister, life took another turn for her. She runs publicly-funded projects at Moscow State University, but is arguably known for her success as a rock ‘n roll dancer.

In 2015, news agency Reuters had disclosed that a participant at a World Rock’n’Roll event was in fact Putin’s daughter, who was Katerina Tikhonova.

In 2017, a colleague of Tikhonova from the world of acrobatic rock’n’roll had confirmed that she is the younger daughter of Vladimir Putin, as per a report published by The Independent.

Her love for rock ‘n’ roll dancing was so profound that she also 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.

She married Russian billionaire Kirill Shamalov in 2013, although the pair have allegedly since split, and in 2018 Tikhonova made her television debut on Russia 1.

Sanctions for action in Bucha

The US and EU sanctions against Maria and Katerina are in response to Russia’s alleged killing of civilians in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha.

High-resolution Maxar satellite imagery revealed several bodies of civilians lying dead in or just off the roadway where Ukrainian officials recently said they found multiple corpses after Russian troops withdrew.

Ukrainian officials have said the bodies of at least 410 civilians have been found in towns around Kyiv that were recaptured from Russian forces in recent days. The Ukrainian prosecutor-general’s office has described one room discovered in Bucha as a “torture chamber.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov categorically rejected all the accusations, saying that Russian defence ministry experts had found signs that the images presented by the Ukrainian authorities to show there had been a massacre were fake.

Russia’s defence ministry said that all its units “withdrew completely from Bucha as early as 30 March”.

The denial was repeated in New York by Vassily Nebenzia, the Russian ambassador to the UN, who told a press conference the corpses pictured in Bucha were not there before Russian troops left the city.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the killings tantamount to “genocide,” and that those responsible should be held accountable.

In his address to the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday, Zelenskyy said that the Bucha massacre is “only one” of many war crimes that the Russian troops have committed across the cities of the east European country.

“People were killed in their apartments, houses…civilians were crushed by tanks while sitting in their cars in the middle of the road, just for their pleasure,” Zelenskyy told the council.

With inputs from agencies

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