Putin’s new kid with Russian gymnast

Last Updated: 1:16 PM, January 28, 2013
Posted: 11:51 PM, January 27, 2013

Russian strongman Vladimir Putin — who’s widely believed to have a 3-year-old son with former Olympics rhythmic gymnast Alina Kabaeva — is now said to have a baby daughter with the flexible 29-year-old beauty as well, reports The Post’s Richard Johnson. Kabaeva — a member of Russia’s rubber-stamp parliament, the Duma — gave birth to the girl in November, a source tells Page Six.
The Moscow media have never reported that Putin is the father, and when Kabaeva appeared on the cover of Russian Vogue two years ago, she said the boy was her nephew. “Everyone, of course, thinks he is my son,” she laughed.
When the Moskovsky Korrespondent reported in 2008 that Putin was secretly engaged to Kabaeva, the newspaper’s billionaire owner Aleksandr Lebedev quickly retracted the story and closed the paper down. But gossip continues to circulate.

Putin’s wife, Lyudmila, hasn’t been seen in public since his inauguration last spring, and there was no official celebration of her 55th birthday earlier this month. Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov might have slipped in referring to Lyudmila as Putin’s “first wife” when he tweeted to wish her a “Caucasus-style long life.” It is believed that Putin has moved Alina and her two kids into his palatial retreat in Sochi on the Black Sea, where the czars had their summer palace. That is where tax-avoiding French actor Gerard Depardieu recently picked up his Russian passport from Putin. Meanwhile, Lyudmila is said to be locked away in a $1.5 million state-built guest house on the grounds of the ancient Yelizarov monastery outside Pskov, close to Estonia’s border.