Vladimir Putin’s lover has been sent to Siberia - more than 2,000 miles from the luxury palaces she shared with the Russian dictator.
Alina Kabaeva, the dictator’s 39-year-old long-time mistress has traditionally preferred to hide away in Switzerland where she gave birth to one of his children in 2015, say reports.
But sanctions over Putin’s have limited her travel to the West - and instead she flew under high security to Omsk in Siberia as special guest at a gymnastics event.
Kabaeva - a former Olympic gold medal winner - makes only rare public appearances.
She is seen attending the Evgeniya Cup attended by child competitors from areas of Ukraine invaded by Putin, as well as repressive allies Belarus and Cuba.
Omsk is more than 2,000 miles away from at least two palaces she shares with Putin - one hidden in forests in Valdai in the north of Russia, the other at Gelendzhik on a cliff top overlooking the Black Sea.
It is unclear how long she is remaining in Siberia.
This comes amid speculation that Kabaeva - mother to at least two Putin children in a secret family hidden from Russian people - is angling for a major political role in his regime.
One theory is she wants to succeed the powerful speaker of the country’s senate for Federation Council, Valentina Matviyenko, 74, the most senior female official in Putin’s entourage, who is widely seen as ready for retirement.
The pair were seen together last month at Kabaeva’s gymnastics centre in Sochi.
Such a nepotistic move would trigger rumours that she could ultimately succeed Putin, 70, as president.
Kabaeva, wearing a wedding ring indicating a secret marriage to Putin, was seen surrounded by a coterie of secret service bodyguards when she met Matviyenko.
Putin has never admitted a relationship let alone marriage or children with Kabaeva, but most Russians accept as fact that she shares his multiple palaces and lavish lifestyle even though the state media is banned from mentioning their relationship.
Former dissident Russian MP Maria Maksakova, 45, is claiming that Kabaeva’s aim is to take over Matviyenko’s role.
Kabaeva is now the nominal head of an oligarch-owned medic conglomerate slavishly loyal to Putin.
“About the fate of Kabaeva, I think she wants to get the role of Valentina Matviyenko, even if it seems to be quite hard,” Maksakova told Fakty Ukraine.
Kabaeva “understands future threats” - and the risk to her and Putin’s children if his health fails and he is no longer president, she said.
“She also realises her sports career and medals will not save her from an unsightly possible fate.
“So she must think not only about herself, but also that her children do not suffer the fate of Ivan Antonovich.”
He was an infant emperor ultimately slain who ruled Russia as Ivan VI after being proclaimed tsar in 1740.
Maksakova’s husband ex-Russian MP Denis Voronenkov, 45, was killed in an apparent Kyiv political assassination after defecting to Ukraine and claiming persecution by Putin’s secret services
In his last interview before he was shot dead, he claimed the FSB secret service - once headed by Putin - was "in charge of everything in Russia", warning his country was "like Nazi Germany".
Under Putin, "the whole country is going mad in a pseudo-patriotic stupor", he said.
Kabaeva is seen as having been Putin’s girlfriend since 2008 - when he was still married to former Russian first lady Lyudmila Putina - three years after he gave her a major award at the Kremlin.
She is known to have given birth in Switzerland in 2015, and in Moscow in 2019.
Until the start of the war, she regularly used a Swiss mansion overlooking Lake Geneva.
Reports say she shares Putin's homes including a forest palace at Valdai.
