Russian President Vladimir Putin's youngest adult daughter was exposed by a Russian journalist, giving Russians and the rest of the world more than just a glimpse of who 28-year-old Ekaterina Tikhonova is.

Since the president is a former KGB spy, he has kept his two daughters away from the public eye, unlike the daughters of American presidents who are the subject of much media coverage.

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In 2013, when Putin announced his divorce to wife Lyudmila, he broke his silence and told Tass that his two daughters live in Moscow and the youngest was named after her maternal grandmother, Ekaterina Tikhonovna Shkrebneva, reports Bloomberg.

According to journalist Oleg Kashin, who is risking his life by training the spotlight on the youngest Putin daughter, Ekaterina is a scientist, businesswoman and dancer, reports Daily Mail.

Rather than use the Putin surname, which would easily identify her as one of Russia's first daughters, she uses her mother's maiden name Tikhonova and uses as middle name Vladimirovna, an indicator that her father's first name is Vladimir.

These two names link to her parents as well as her listing August 31, 1986, as her birthday in a listing for dancer Yekaterina Tikhonova, are more confirmations of the political lineage, which Kashin noted was the direction she is going into, notwithstanding her dance career.

While Ekaterina inevitably has been photographed in several university photos for its official ceremonies, the captions do not identify her as the president's daughter, although facial similarities with her mother, Lyudmila, are yet another indicator from what family she comes from.

Daily Mail notes the attendance of Tikhonova at the World Economic Forum in Davos, along with other children of prominent political families in Russia, as well as her being placed in charge of the US$1.6-billion expansion of the Moscow State University in her role as head of the National Intellectual Reserve Center. She is also a member of the university's scientific council.

Not surprisingly, when Dmitry Peskov, the spokesman of the president, was asked by Koshin if Tikhonova, also the vice president of the World Confederation of Acrobatic Rock n' Roll, is she is the president's kid, his safe answer was, "I do not know who she is. I cannot deny it, because I do not know."

Peskov added that many girls claim to be offspring of Putin.

Koshin said that given Russia's economic debacle as a result of the Western sanctions, the president may see his youngest daughter as his successor in the political sphere. He predicts that Yekaterina's dance career would take a step back, while "her biography will develop now according to the interests of the state."

Yekaterina and dance partner, Ivan Klimov, clinched sixth place at the European championships for acrobatic rock n' roll held in Kaliningrad in 2014.

Meanwhile, bloggers too predict a grim future for Koshin that he may be beaten black-and-blue again like what happened several years ago when he had to be confined in a hospital for quite some time because of his exposes.

TagsRussia, ekaterina tikhanova