Investigative journalists claim to have identified the eight-year-old girl as the granddaughter of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Her name was uncovered through an analysis of Russian border service data leaked to the public, with records showing the girl had travelled to Croatia.
According to the investigation by the independent media outlet Proekt, the girl is Elsa Igorevna Tikhonova, born in December 2017. She is allegedly the daughter of Katerina Tikhonova, who has long been identified as Putin's daughter, and Russian ballet artist and director Igor Zalesky. The girl in the documents bears the surname Tikhonova, which is also used by her mother, while the middle part of her name, 'Igorevna', is derived from her father's name. Katerina was born as a Putin, but has long used a different surname. Putin has never publicly confirmed that she is his daughter.
According to the records, the girl first left Russia on 11 November 2019, just before her second birthday. She travelled with her parents by private jet, a German company Air Hamburg, to Munich, where the family spent exactly two months. Zelinsky was at the time artistic director of the Bavarian State Ballet. Less than two years later, the girl travelled by private jet to Croatia. In records of both trips, she is listed as Elsa Igorevna Tikhonova.
The authenticity of the leaked data has not been independently verified, and the Kremlin has not yet commented publicly on the latest claims. The existence of Katerina Tikhonova's child had been reported in 2022. In a joint investigation by the independent media outlet Important Stories and the German Der Spiegel, journalists stated that they had seen the girl's passport, travel documents and a list of passengers on the charter flight between Munich and Moscow. The name of the child was not published for ethical reasons, but it was stated that the girl was born in 2017 and that her name included 'Igorevna'.
The documents showed that two nannies, a piano teacher and security personnel for the Russian president were travelling with the family. The investigation showed that the Tikhonova family had travelled more than 50 times to Munich, at a time when Zelinsky was leading the Bavarian State Ballet. One of the documents indicated that in late 2019, she was preparing to move to Germany.
Igor Zalesky left the Bavarian State Opera following the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The management of the opera house later stated that he had been under pressure to leave after he had not publicly condemned the invasion. Putin rarely speaks about his children and grandchildren, citing their safety and privacy, and the Kremlin usually refuses to comment on journalistic investigations into the family of the Russian president.
