Russian investigation confirms Putin’s son was born in Switzerland

Vladimir Putin hands flowers to Alina Kabaeva, after awarding her with an Order of Friendship during the annual award ceremony in the Kremlin in 2001. Sergei Chirikov / AFP

The Dossier Center, a website specialised in tracking the criminal activities of people connected to the Kremlin, has confirmed that one of the sons of Russian President Vladimir Putin was born in Switzerland in 2015. The report, published on Wednesday quoting an anonymous source working at Putin’s residence, said his long-term partner, Alina Kabaeva, delivered their first son at a clinic in Lugano, southern Switzerland.

The Dossier Center reportExternal link also provided rare insights into the living conditions of the couple’s two sons, now aged nine and five, at their residence on Lake Valdai, in central Russia.

Putin divorced his wife Lyudmila in 2013 but has never publicly acknowledged his relationship with Kabaeva, a former gymnast.

Their relationship has drawn a lot of media attention, including speculation on where their sons were born. In a report published in May 2022, Swiss newspaper SonntagsZeitung confirmedExternal link that the couple had two sons, with the first one born in Switzerland. This information was never officially confirmed.

In an interview with SWI swissinfo.ch, Sergei Pugachev, a former advisor to Putin, indirectly confirmed the information. “Everyone in Russia knows that Alina Kabaeva is, so to speak, his wife since Putin’s divorce. And it would be normal she gave birth in Switzerland. His eldest children study abroad.”

Switzerland has long been a preferred destination for wealthy Russian citizens to give birth. Russian women say they are attracted by the quality of care provided by the country’s private clinics.

In a previous report on Russian women giving birth abroad, SWI had noted that the website of the Lugano clinic Sant’Anna advertised that it delivered “children of top Russian leaders”. At the time, we were unable to confirm that Putin’s son was born there.

The source quoted in the Dossier Center’s report is a member of Putin’s household staff. The source’s identity was verified using public sources and bank statements.

Kabaeva’s multiple trips to Switzerland

The source said that Kabaeva travelled to Lugano three times in 2014. On her last trip, she was accompanied by Natalia Thiebaud, a Russian-born gynecologist from Sant’Anna clinic.

“There was a Russian-speaking gynecologist at the clinic in Lugano. We can assume that this was an additional factor for Russian businessmen when choosing a country for childbirth,” says Ilya Rozhdestvensky, a journalist at the Dossier Center, in an interview with SWI.

In the spring of 2015, Kabaeva gave birth to her first son, Ivan, at that same clinic, the source said. In 2018, Kabaeva reportedly travelled to Switzerland again for a prenatal check-up, according to the Dossier Center. In the spring of 2019, the Swiss gynecologist travelled to Moscow to deliver Kabaeva’s second child.

Thiebaud, who emigrated to Switzerland from Russia 30 years ago, received Swiss citizenship and now works under her married name, the source told the Dossier Center: “She maintained a close relationship with Putin.” The decision on where the births would take place was made by the president himself, the source added.

“Our source from among the personnel of Vladimir Putin’s family informed us that Kabaeva’s birth occurred in Lugano. Additionally, we have accessed flight data for Alina Kabaeva and verified that she flew to Switzerland, including with gynecologist Natalia Thiebaud. The gynecologist herself also travelled to Russia around the time Kabaeva was due to give birth to her second child, Rozhdestvensky tells SWI.

The Sant’Anna Clinic in Lugano, Switzerland. Photographed in 2015. Samuel Golay / Keystone

Putin’s children are living an isolated life

The Dossier Center has named the sons for the first time: they are Ivan and Vladimir. The report said they live in isolation under the protection of the Russian Federal Protective Service.

The boys rarely see their parents and meet other children only during holidays, mostly those of Kabaeva’s friends. They travel by private jet, on yachts and on armoured trains. They are educated by governesses, sports teachers and nannies, the report said.

Almost every residence includes a sports complex with a gymnastics hall and a swimming pool, and sometimes even a hockey rink. Personal trainers handle their swimming and gymnastics training.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, preference was given to teachers from “friendly” South Africa. However, Ivan and Vladimir also have teachers with British and New Zealand passports. According to investigators, the ten foreign teachers of Putin’s children are paid between 330,000 and 1.2 million rubles (CHF3,138-CHF11,574) per month.

The teachers are hired through the English Nanny agency, which selects staff for wealthy Russian families, including native language speakers. Under the employer’s conditions, the educators are prohibited from leaving the residence. The job posting states that the family “lives in isolation” in the St. Petersburg region. Additionally, the Dossier Center’s investigation reveals that the teachers’ salaries are processed through clinics in the MMC network (My Medical Center, formerly SOGAZ), where friends and close associates of the president also receive medical examinations. Contracts with the governesses are formalised as if they were translators.

The Dossier Center reports that getting a job with Putin’s family is almost as easy as “walking in off the street”: job vacancies are publicly advertised and anyone can apply. For instance, in early 2024 the family sought an English teacher to live with and educate their two sons, aged four and eight. The job was five days a week, totalling 60 hours, with duties including “teaching other subjects” and accompanying the children on trips. The salary was €7,700 per month. The agency notes that it has long worked with this family and has previously found several English- and German-language teachers for them.

One German-language teacher is Sofia Bozic. Over the past four years, Bozic earned 25.3 million rubles (an average of 516,000 rubles per month). Born in 1992, she is a citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and lived in Austria. She is likely to be highly trusted by Putin’s family as she has worked for them longer than her colleagues and received a loan of nearly 233.8 million rubles from MMC in July 2023.

“The children are being taught German because it was their father’s will. Vladimir Putin himself knows German and preferred his children to speak the language as well,” explains Rozhdestvensky of the Dossier Center.

The family constantly requires new teachers, with turnover linked to the difficulty of getting along with the family, according to a source among the service staff. Additionally, the market for foreigners willing to work in Russia, especially after the war in Ukraine began, is limited, and many have heard about the strict isolation conditions, as stated in the investigation.

Edited by Virginie Mangin/gw