Working for a secret family: Foreigners Raising Supposed Children to Putin

The family has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars a year maintaining child - care workers and teaching them English and German languages, according to a large quantity of documents and correspondence reviewed by Systema, Russian research unit of Radio Free Europe (REL).

The documents cover between 2017 and early 2026 and include a wide range of materials related to research, employment, and caregivers ' work, such as contracts, emails, photographs and daily reports delivered by foreigners on their activities with children.

They offer a detailed view of one aspect of Putin's and Kabayeva's secret family life, Olympic rhythmic gymnastics champion from 2004, which is said to be his former partner and Ivan's mother, born in 2015, and Vladimir, born in 2019.

Putin, 73, has two adult daughters with former wife Lyudmila, who divorced in 2014.

Neither he nor Kabayeva, 43, have confirmed that they are couples or that they have children together, and the Kremlin works hard to keep Putin's private life away from the public eye.

Putin has presented Russia's fight against Ukraine already in the fifth year, as part of a civilising battle and a protection against what he claims to be NATO's and what he calls the “collective West to weaken or destroy Russia and impose their will on the world.

In power as president or prime minister since 1999, Putin has regularly attacked Washington, the West and NATO. In recent years, Russian state propaganda has particularly demonised Britain and the European Union, while senior officials, including Putin, have spoken disparagingly of what they call “-Saxons”.

Immediately after the beginning of Ukraine's invasion in 2022, Putin attacked members of the Russian elite who, according to him, are mentally located “” in the West, warning that Russia's opponents would use them for “causing maximum damage to our people” and then throw it away.

Learning boys to be self-educated European “”

However, one of the tasks that are assigned to foreigners employed to help raise boys is for their skills in English and German to reach the scale of educated “Europeans via complete language immersion, according to materials examined by Systema.

The largest number of employees have come from Germany, followed by South Africa, while others have come from countries like Britain, New Zealand, Austria, Ireland and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Germany and Britain are NATO members and among Ukraine's strongest supporters in its defence against the Russian occupation. Like Germany, Austria and Ireland are members of the European Union. South Africa is a member of the BICS group along with Russia, China, Iran and six other countries.

Systema found only one reference for an employee in Russia: a woman engaged in teaching Ivan music and teaching composers like Sergei Prokofiev and Nikolai Rimsky-Krsakov.

However, along with the Western - language concentration, formal efforts have been made to ensure that boys do not learn about sex, gender, or LGBT. These are the themes that Putin has been mocking, calling them gender “r” and has signed laws that severely restrict homosexual rights, and has frequently linked them to Europe and the West in public comments.

The contracts reviewed by Systema forbid caretakers “to impose their religious, political or ideological views” on children, prohibit the discussion of sexual matters without prior approval, and specify: “do not affect them under any circumstances related to LGBT”.

According to materials, restrictions have also been placed on freedom of movement of foreigners, suggesting they have spent most of their time working on an isolated presidential residence between Moscow and St Petersburg, known as Waldai, where Putin has spent a lot of time over the years.

There is also evidence that time has been spent in the Black Sea resort town of Sochi, where another luxury residence used by Putin, Bocharov Ruchei is located. However, in research published in 2025, Systema discovered that Putin had rarely used that residence since the previous year, since Ukrainian - afraid attacks within Russia had become more frequent.

The Russian REL service reported in April that 27 air defence installations were established in the area around the Waldai complex, many of them Pantsir-S1 missile systems.

Correspondence from 2022 shows that a 58-year-old English teacher, raised in Canada and with Irish and British passports, was reportedly unable to go to town to shop or “visited various public sites” during her leisure time. Prepare a list of things you need and we'll buy and we'll give it to you after we deal with security agents”, she was told.

Employees have been subjected to extensive and frequent medical examinations, and in the hours of the year 2018, evidence of occasional quarantines appears before COVID's outbreak.

Among other restrictions, documents show that they have been forbidden to talk to outsiders about their work or to publish social networking information. They also show that private teachers, babysitters and other assistants have been forced to submit detailed daily reports on working with boys.

Neither Putin nor Kabayeva are named in contracts or other documents. However, there is ample evidence that they are “family”, “parents” and “employers” mentioned repeatedly on material, including reference by name to the older son Ivan, and to the “small”, with ages consistent with those of the two supposed brothers.

Advanced research

The target also took broad steps to verify evidence in documents, analyzing photos, postings on social networks, flight records and other public information related to both foreigners and people near Putin and Kabaieva involved in their employment.

Berlin-based Centre for Data and Research (DARC), an independent group of experts supporting investigations, stated that time stamps and other aspects of documents provided by Systema showed no false signs or suspicious details, but that it would be difficult to talk about absolute authenticity.

The family began seeking help abroad in 2017, the year Ivan was two years old, and until 2018 his program included English, German, and music. Documents indicate that a foreign woman was employed to teach her young child English and at the same time to care for her as a nanny.

REL knows the names of employees from passport copies and other documents, but has decided not to publish their identities to protect privacy.

As a rule, four to six foreign caretakers have been working for the family at any time, where some carried out various roles as English and German teaching, and some replaced each other with shifts.

The first Correspondence from Systema also reveals in detail banal matters as a disagreement with a nanny over whether she had properly cleaned Ivan after going to the bathroom in a November 2018 case.

Amid public indifference to the West by Russian authorities, which discourage the pursuit of Western traditions, a report by an English teacher who was seen by Systema suggests that Ivan created a congratulation card for “mana and father” during Western Christmas in December 2018, where Santa was shown. The Russian Orthodox Christmas falls in January, and their symbol is Ded Moroz, or Acarte grandpa.

The payment of foreign employees seems to have changed greatly and increased over time. A caretaker paid 1,400 euros a month in 2019 to wages totaling 7,000 euros, more than six times the average monthly salary in Russia in 2025.

“Maturi, loyalty, silence and absolute conviction”

The contracts indicate that each steward was equipped with a room in an apartment or a hotel suite on the condition that he could share space with another person, but he would have guaranteed his room and shower bath.

The files show that some employees left their jobs before the contract expired, others have left on their own, while some potential caretakers have travelled to Moscow or St Petersburg, have passed interviews and examinations and later have returned to their countries.

An Austrian, 34-year-old woman, who had enthusiastically prepared for the care work of a 4-year-old child and taught him German, was disappointed after arriving in July 2019 and initially stayed in five-star hotels as promised, since later she saw herself “in the middle of nowhere” in a small village near Waldai, she wrote to potential employers after they told her email that she was not suitable for this job.

In a communication with Systema years later, she said correspondence for the work had developed with a high level of secrecy and that she had never been told who she would work for.

Materials show that the process of research, employment and financial agreements with the contracted men and women to help raise and educate the boys has been managed mainly by Kabayeva's two cousins, Olesya Fedina and Yekaterina Golovacheva.

Neither Fedina nor Golovacheva answered questions sent by Systema. Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov, and a Kabayeva representative also ignored the requirements for comment.

Systema also asked for comments from some of the people who showed that they were employed to help raise the two boys. One confirmed that he had been a babysitter in Russia for three months, but he had never been told who he worked for.

We received instructions and information only through family help”, she told Systema, adding that “maturi, loyalty, silence and absolute obedience to” were expected from the employees.

She called her short period on that job a “extraordinary experience” and said the family was always fair and very generous “”, but suggested that interoperability with aides was unilateral.

I was simply a person who received commands and commands”, she said. / REL/