Katerina Tikhonova

Katerina Tikhonova is the daughter of Vladimir Putin, a tech executive whose work supports the Russian government and defense industry, and a former acrobatic rock'n'roll dancer.

Tikhonova was born in 1986 as Katerina Vladimirovna Tikhonova to parents Vladimir Putin and Lyudmila Putina. She has an older sister, Maria Vorontsova. Both of Putin's daughters were kept out of the public eye as children, so much so that Putin has rarely acknowledged that he even has daughters. Tikhonova attended the German School Moscow before going to Saint Petersburg State University, where she briefly studied Japanese history. She eventually earned a master's degree in mathematics and physics at Moscow State University.

Tikhonova is a former competitive acrobatic dancer, specifically in the sport of acrobatic rock 'n' roll, which she took an interest in while she was in college. In November 2016, Tikhonova and her dance partner, Dmitry Alekseev, won second place in the Russian acrobatic rock 'n' roll national championships.

Tikhonova is now a tech executive whose work supports the Russian government and defense industry. In 2015, Tikhonova headed the National Intellectual Reserve Center and served as a member of the economic board at Moscow State University. The same year, a new $1.6 billion startup incubator and science center was built next to Moscow State University, set to be run by Tikhonova. At the 2021 St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, she spoke about international investment disputes. She was introduced as the deputy director for the Institute for Mathematical Research of Complex Systems at Moscow State University.

Tikhonova was previously married to Kirill Shamalov, a shareholder and the son of a longtime acquaintance of Vladimir Putin. The two married in 2013 and split in 2018. Tikhonova is now dating Igor Zelensky, a Russian ballet dancer. They reportedly have a daughter together, born in 2017.

In April 2022, due to consequences from the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Tikhonova had economic sanctions placed against her by the United States due to her status as an adult child of President Putin.