The Russian dictator is facing a delicate family situation, a leak has revealed.
Alexei Babushkin/Sputnik/Alexei Babushkin/Pool via REUTERS
Vladimir Putin’s secret grandson has been given a new name after an irony put him a little too close to the Russian dictator’s arch-enemy.
Leaked documents reveal that Putin’s closely guarded family added a new member in August 2025, when his daughter Katerina Tikhonova, 40, gave birth to a son, Adrian, according to independent Russian investigative media outlet Agentstvo.
Katerina Tikhonova oversees major Russian AI projects and is linked to drone production, an industry that has become a crucial part of her father’s war against Ukraine.
EVGENIA NOVOZHENINA/REUTERS
This arrival is accompanied by a rather embarrassing inconvenience for the 74-year-old despot: by convention, his grandson’s last name would be none other than “Zelensky”.
Adrian’s father is ballet dancer Igor Zelensky, 57, who led the Bavarian State Ballet in Germany until his father-in-law launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Although Igor Zelensky and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky are not related, it appears Putin has been unwilling to entertain an association after years of failed attempts to overthrow Ukraine’s democratically elected leader.
Zelensky has become the face of Ukrainian resistance to Putin’s attempt to bring the country under Moscow’s control.
Cornelius Poppe/via REUTERS
According to leaked civil records, Putin’s grandson was registered under the name Adrian Tikhonov, taking the masculine form of his mother Katerina’s surname rather than his father’s.
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Adrian’s birth certificate was issued by the Moscow Central Clinical Hospital, known as the “Kremlin Clinic”.
It took an unusually long time – 11 months – after Adrian’s birth for it to be registered.
Katerina Tikhonova, the younger of Putin’s two acknowledged daughters, is a former acrobatic dancer who now oversees key Russian AI projects and is linked to drone production, an industry that has become a crucial part of her father’s war against Ukraine.
Adrian is Tikhonova’s second child with Igor Zelensky. The couple welcomed their eldest daughter Elsa in 2017.
At birth, Elsa was given her father’s surname, using the feminine form “Zelenskaya”. But she is now believed to have ditched the embarrassing name in favor of her mother’s Tikhonova, according to the Daily Mail.
Former Olympic gymnast Alina Kabaeva is reportedly Vladimir Putin’s longtime lover and mother of two of his children.
REUTERS/ITAR-TASS/PRESIDENTIAL PRESS SERVICE / Reuters
Tikhonova’s older sister, Maria Vorontsova, 41, is Putin’s first daughter from his marriage to ex-wife Lyudmila Ocheretnaya, 68. Vorontsova has two children, aged 14 and 9.
Putin’s longtime lover Alina Kabaeva, 43, is only a few years older than his two daughters. She would have four children with the dictator, including two sons called Ivan and Vladimir.
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