New pics show Putin's ‘secret son' Ivan, 10, looking identical to despot as he follows in glam gymnast mum's footsteps

The Sun

15-07-2025

NEW pictures show Vladimir Putin's "secret son" Ivan looking identical to his tyrant dad as he follows in his gymnast mum's footsteps.
The young boy, now 10, was born to the Russian dictator's hidden glam lover Alina Kabaeva, 42, an Olympic gold medal-winning rhythmic gymnast.
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New images appear to show Putin's son at a training session in June 2025 in Valdai, where the tyrant has his favourite palace.
And pictures of Ivan in a public gymnastics performance have been revealed by anti-Kremlin Telegram channel VChK-OGPU, which in April published the first photos of a child they called 'the loneliest boy in Russia'.
The channel wrote: "Ivan is in a team of boy-gymnasts with a separate number within a group performance, and the cameraman's attention is focused on his team.
"He took part in a large [performance] called 'Lezginka' at a festival organised by his mother."
Unbelievable footage shows him performing as part of the team at the ALINA 2023 event.
His mum Alina Kabaeva - a highly decorated rhythmic gymnast - runs an elite gymnastics academy and is behind training sessions in Valdai.
The channel added: "From the numerous photos [...] of the sports team for which Ivan competes, you can see that one of its members is not an ordinary boy.
'During performances, training, and other events that take place indoors, there are eight people in the team.
'Alina Kabaeva is often present in the photo of the eight, she is behind one of the boys."
The channel said Ivan doesn't appear to have taken part in 'mass events' since 2023, but he still features in his team's pictures.
Swiss-born Ivan - who resembles mad Vlad in his Soviet childhood - has a younger brother Vladimir junior, now five, who is yet to be pictured.
Ivan, just like his mum, appears to be accomplished as a young gymnast, and competed in the same festival where fellow contestants were from countries like China, Cuba, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Belarus.
A message posted by his club stated their gymnasts showed an 'excellent level of training and the ability to work in a team".
It added: "Hours of training and rehearsals were not in vain! We are proud!!"
Putin has never confirmed the young family he has with Kabaeva - who is three decades younger than him.
However, in a random moment last year, he confessed to watching Russian fairytale movies with '[his] little ones'.
Putin told reporters: 'Our historic fairytales and epic tales are being revived.
'I myself sometimes watch these with pleasure with my little ones.'
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A flicker of a smile appeared on the tyrant's face as he mentioned them.
Despite Putin and the Kremlin vehemently denying a relationship between him and glamorous Kabaeva, independent Russian journalists have established they have two sons together.
Until now, the children have never been seen and live out of sight behind his high-security palace walls.
Putin also has another secret daughter Ekaterina Krivonogikh, 22 - aka Luiza Rozova - born to his former mistress, cleaner-turned-multimillionaire Svetlana Krivonogikh, 50.
She holds shares in a top bank and owns a prominent St Petersburg strip club.
Luiza is known to have lived in the West - in Paris - during the war in Ukraine.
Putin is highly secretive about his private life.
"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 who the mystery man in her life was but would only reveal 'he's a very good man, a great man," adding: "I love him very much".
Last year Dossier Centre investigative news outlet confirmed the longstanding speculation that Kabaeva had two sons with Putin.
Astonishingly, the boys secretly have had British and New Zealand citizens as governesses, but now due to Putin's war, the Russian ruler recruits South African citizens to teach English to his heirs.
The children live under the permanent guard of FSO [Federal Protective Service] officers.
'The brothers have little contact with their peers and see little of their parents, but they appreciate the rare moments they manage to spend with their father,' said Dossier Centre.
They don't attend schools and are taught in Putin's palaces like the royal children of the last Russian tsar.
Putin's secret lover
PUTIN and his alleged gymnast lover were first linked 15 years ago after a report in a Moscow newspaper run by media tycoon and former KGB spy Alexander Lebedev.
The despot was still married to his first wife at the time, Lyudmila Putina, whom he later divorced in 2014.
Kabaeva, who is 31 years younger than Putin, shot to fame as "Russia's most flexible woman" and went on to become one of Russia's most decorated gymnasts in history.
Around the time they first met, Alina was asked on a kids' TV show whether she had found her "ideal man".
And without naming the Russian leader, Alina replied giggling: 'I have met him" and added that she was 'so happy'.
'A man, a very good man, a great man," she said, adding: 'I love him very much.'
Russian state media bans any mention of links between the two and Putin is said to be ferociously private about their relationship.
"I have a private life in which I do not permit interference. It must be respected,' he barked in one interview.
He deplored "those who with their snotty noses and erotic fantasies prowl into others' lives'
A Moscow source previously told The Sun: 'Putin is an intensely private man - he has been hiding his two adult daughters under fake IDs for years.
"Even now, though he talks about them occasionally, he never names them.
'If Alina gave birth to his children, her hiding away might be one of the strongest hints pointing to this.
"He is obsessive about the security of his family.'
In 2016, Kabaeva appeared in public wearing a ring on her ring finger, which she seemed to attempt to hide from the cameras.
She was wearing the ring again during a rare TV interview, where she failed to shed any new light on her alleged relationship with the Kremlin leader, whose name wasn't mentioned.
In February 2017, Kabaeva made another public appearance, apparently showing off the ring at a gymnastics tournament in Moscow.
Months later, she teased Russians yet again by showing off what appeared to be a wedding ring on an outing in Italy.
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