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At Vladimir PutinThe first economic forum, called “Russian Davos” and held every year in the President’s hometown of St. Petersburg, two women spoke at length. Their identity was an open secret, but no one dared to say it out loud: they were Putin’s grown-up daughters.
The elder daughter, 39-year-old Maria Vorontsova, a scientist specializing in genetic research, chaired a discussion at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) on the topic of “Bioeconomy.”
That same day, 37-year-old Katerina Tikhonova, a technical manager and acrobatic rock and roll dancer, spoke proudly of the defense industry’s role in ensuring Russia’s technological sovereignty.
The identities of Putin’s daughters from his marriage to Lyudmila Putina, a former Aeroflot flight attendant whom he divorced in 2013, are never confirmed by the Kremlin, and no photos of them as adults have been officially released. Despite their growing influence and the fact that they have been sanctioned by the West, Putin has never publicly recognized them as his daughters. Once asked by reporters, he simply referred to them as “those women.”
Their names were also conspicuously absent from Putin’s detailed family tree presented to the public at SPIEF 2024. The display, set up at a booth where guests could take photos, traced the president’s lineage back to the 17th century’s Troubled Times, revealing his humble origin from a peasant family.
But the rising public profiles of the two women point to a broader trend: the children of Putin and his allies are increasingly occupying positions in business and government, suggesting that their elderly parents are working to ensure a smooth transition of power and influence.
There was Ksenia Shoigu, daughter of former Defense Minister and current Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu, presiding over a discussion about the triathlon federation of the country she heads.
Roman Rotenberg, a senior ice hockey manager whose father, Boris, was among Putin’s childhood judo partners, also spoke out, somewhat wryly protesting what he called “nepotism in sport”.
In a recent report titled Politburo 2.0, a nod to the former Soviet Union’s system of governance, Yevgeny Minchenko, a political scientist close to the Kremlin, described this process as “the rise of the princess.”
“The children of members of the political elite have achieved long-awaited career growth,” he wrote.
This year was away from the forum before the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, when multinationals and Russian companies will vie for expensive partnerships or throw glitzy parties with pop stars including Sting to prove they are committed to the Russian market.
Among its speakers, SPIEF once boasted world leaders such as French President Emmanuel Macron, Chinese leader Xi Jinping and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
To replace Western delegations, Russia is courting officials from South America, Africa, India and China. Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa and Bolivian President Luis Arce were guests of honor this year.
A delegation from the Taliban also attended, although the organization is officially banned in Russia.
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Discussions on strengthening cooperation with the West are already in the past, replaced by lectures by far-right activists, including philosopher Alexander Dugin, who passionately advocated total war. Other officials called for the abolition of the “LGBT movement.”
T-shirts with a catchphrase attributed to Putin were sold at the conference. “If a fight is inevitable, strike the first blow,” it said, referring to a saying Putin reportedly coined while growing up on the streets of Leningrad.
In a sign of the times, the hawkish Russian political scientist Sergey Karaganov, who recently advocates a pre-emptive nuclear strikewas chosen to moderate the closing ceremony, traditionally hosted by Putin.
Still, some participants said the mood at the meeting was upbeat, buoyed by the positive economic outlook. Despite the dubious distinction of being the most heavily sanctioned country in the world, Russia’s economy is expected to grow faster than most other advanced economies, according to the International Monetary Fund – underscoring the country’s surprising resilience and raising questions about the effectiveness of sanctions policies.
Russia’s oil and gas revenues in April almost doubled year-on-year to £11 billion on the back of rising prices, underscoring the difficulties countries face in the West as they seek to limit the Kremlin’s revenue and stifle its military power.
“There is a clear sense of optimism this year compared to 2023,” said an official at a state-owned financial institution, who attended SPIEF for the third time. “There is a sense of pride in the air that we have won the West’s economic war.”
When a visibly confident Putin delivered his plenary speech on Friday, he promised the audience victory in Ukraine and advertised the country’s economic growth.
“Despite all obstacles and illegitimate sanctions, Russia remains one of the key players in world trade,” he said.
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