Vladimir Putin's secret lover has confirmed their relationship in a TV interview, saying he is her "ideal man."
Alina Kabaeva, 39, is a former Olympic gymnast who is 30 years younger than him and the pair have never acknowledged their relationship, but many suspect they have at least two children together.
Fifteen years ago this month she was interviewed on TV by schoolchildren and mentioned her unnamed partner but now many say it is clear the man in her life was and still is warmonger Putin.
The then 24-year-old was asked if she had met her "ideal man", and she giggled in response: "I have."
Her young audience asked her: "You said you had a boyfriend? Why aren’t you in a rush to marry him, are you afraid of happiness? Who is he?"
She responded: "So you’ve managed to ask this question, well done you. As for being scared of happiness, sometimes I am so happy I am scared to be that happy. Of course, there are some concerns…"
The MailOnline reports that another asked: "And who [is he]?"
"A man, a very good man, a great man. I love him very much" she replied while fidgeting uneasily with a pen.
She replied to another question that her last gift to him had been "an Alaska coat, a coat with fur, very beautiful" and not long after, Putin was seen in a coat which matched the same description.
Kabaeva was asked whether she would be able to "take a husband away from a family" and at the time is was public knowledge that Putin was married to former air stewardess Lyudmila.
She continued: "Life is complicated, and speaking about a married man.
"If there are issues in a family and a man is looking at another woman, and is communicating with another woman and not with his wife, it means the problem has already happened, and there wouldn’t be anything good in this family."
Ms Kabaeva is said to live with the Russian president at a secret forest palace guarded by the elite security service in Valdai - 250 miles northwest of Moscow.
Opposition and independent Russian journalists have revealed her clear role in Putin’s life and revealed details about their lavish life as the war rages on. She has also been pictured with him multiple times.
Dr Elisabeth Schimpfössl, a senior lecturer at Aston University and author of Rich Russians: From Oligarchs to Bourgeoisie, told the Telegraph she has heard rumours that “Vladimir Putin and Alina live together in the Kremlin”.
She is reported to have been seen wearing a wedding ring and there have been claims she and Putin married in the Iversky Monastery in the Valdai hills between Moscow and St Petersburg.
In 2015, Switzerland’s Bick tabloid reported Putin had flown to Switzerland to be with Kabaeva as she went into labour at the private Clinic Sant’Anna near Lugano.
Putin’s spokesman insisted that “information about the birth of a baby fathered by Vladimir Putin does not correspond to reality”.
The reported twins are said to have been born in 2018, after which Kabaeva disappeared from public view for almost three years.
