Alina Kabaeva, 41, turned up at the 2025 Rhythmic Gymnastics Championship in Russia with gymnasts from her elite Sky Grace Academy and wearing a noticeable bomber jacket
Putin’s longtime lover Alina Kabaeva teaches gymnasts at Sky Grace Academy
Vladimir Putin’s longtime lover Alina Kabaeva, 41, has reminded the world of her unofficial role as tsarina by wearing a bomber jacket embossed with the Russian coat of arms that features a double-headed eagle.
The Olympic gold-winning rhythmic gymnast reportedly shares two young children with the Kremlin dictator, 72, although Putin never mentions her or his secret family. She has no official function – but for the second time in seven years has chosen to herald her importance by wearing the Russian coat of arms. Kabaeva was in Kazan with star young gymnasts from her Sochi-based Sky Grace Academy.
Her bomber jacket also displayed the Russian flag on the sleeve as she attended the 2025 Rhythmic Gymnastics Championship with one of the country’s most elite sports schools. Earlier, in 2018, Kabaeva wore a white long dress with a huge double-headed eagle prompting commentators to surmise that she was showing herself as a “symbol of the state”.
While Putin and the Kremlin have always denied a relationship between him and glamorous Kabaeva, independent Russian journalists have established they have two sons together. They are named Ivan, ten, and Vladimir junior, five, and live out of sight, sharing his multiple lavish palaces in different regions of Russia.
“I have a private life in which I do not permit interference. It must be respected,” divorced Putin barked in one interview. He deplored “those who with their snotty noses and erotic fantasies prowl into others’ lives”.
Kabaeva in 2004 posed almost nude – except for furs – for Maxim magazine in Russia and was described as “full of sex” by a photographer. Earlier – after being temporarily banned in a doping scandal in 2001 – she was photographed naked but for strategically-placed lilacs as part of a Russian project “Twelve Months” by Ekaterina Rozhdestvenskaya.
Later, she appeared on a Russian show called One Hundred Questions for Adults when she was questioned about her private life by an audience of children. In one clip, was asked by a young boy if she had met her “ideal man” to which she replied giggling: “I have.”
She was then asked to identify the mystery suitor in her life but would only reveal “he’s a very good man, a great man” though she added: “’I love him very much.” Kabaeva added: “Sometimes you feel so happy that you even feel scared.”
The coat of arms with the double-headed eagle is similar to the tsarist-era subbed of Russia before the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. Earlier this year it was reported that Kabaeva was secretly paid by a military unit linked to the dictator when she was only 17 years old.
This link to Putin – revealed by We Can Explain independent media – was around eight years before her hidden relationship with the dictator, now 72, was first publicly aired by a Russian newspaper, which was rapidly shut down. It was also four years before Kabaeva won her Olympic Gold at the 2004 Games.
The significance of the payment from military unit Number 16660 located in Ramenskoye near Moscow is “intriguing” but unexplained. The unit is part of the Federal Protective Service [FSO] and is directly controlled by the Russian president. The payments were made in 2000–2001, Putin’s first full year as president, and were highlighted by the media outlet from Kabaeva’s official confidential pension records.
