Maria Vorontsova is now deputy dean of Moscow State University (Picture: TV channel: Doctor)
Vladimir Putin’s eldest daughter has landed a top university job – in a move attacked as ‘cronyism’.
Maria Vorontsova, 37, and her younger sister Katerina Tikhonova are the Russian president’s only children from his marriage to ex-wife Lyudmila.
Both were heavily sanctioned by western countries due to their links to Putin.
Maria has now been awarded the post of deputy dean of Moscow State University’s prestigious medical department.
The appointment ‘in secret’ was revealed by leading anti-corruption investigator Maria Pevchikh, a close colleague of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
He wrote: ‘And you tell me that young scientists in Russia have no prospects.
‘In the dean’s position, I would be wary of Maria’s prospects.’
Meanwhile Maria’s younger sister Katerina, 36, is already at the prestigious university as head of Innopraktika, a project linked to oligarchs around Putin intended to monetise key scientific advancements.
The facility is the most prestigious university in the country (Picture: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
She is also co-chair of a task force to bypass curbs due to Western sanctions on imports for Russian industry.
Russian state media are forbidden from revealing the true identity of both women.
Vorontsova – an expert in dwarfism – has a son called Roman, ten, who takes part in the mini class of the Russian karting championships.
Her ex-husband, Dutch businessman Jorrit Faassen, is the son of a NATO colonel, and the boy evidently has both Russian and Netherlands citizenship.
Maria Vorontsova, 37, has been heavily sanctioned by the West (Picture: SPILF/east2west news)
She is now with Yevgeny Nagorny, 34, who walked into a top job once their relationship started.
The pair were pictured at a wedding in Italy in 2019 – but lately she has been unable to travel to the West due to sanctions, and a report said Putin had blocked her from travelling abroad for a tropical holiday after the war started.
Before her new job she was a leading researcher at the National Medical Research Center for Endocrinology of the Ministry of Health of Russia.
Her sister Katerina, also sanctioned, was once a high-kicking ‘rock’n’roll’ dancer who married Russia’s youngest billionaire Kirill Shamalov, 40, son of a close Putin crony.
But the marriage collapsed and Katerina started a relationship with ballet star Igor Zelensky, no relation of the Ukrainian president.
In recent months, speculation has been rife over Putin’s alleged love child Luiza Rozova, 19, a university student who lives a millionaire’s lifestyle.
She has vanished from social media since the start of the war in Ukraine and is the daughter of a former Putin lover, cleaner-turned-multimillionaire Svetlana Krivonogikh, 47.
Putin is believed to have more undisclosed children with Olympic rhythmic gymnast turned media mogul Alina Kabaeva, 39, widely seen as his longterm lover.
The Kremlin leader has previously said: ‘I have a private life in which I do not permit interference. It must be respected.’
He deplored ‘those who with their snotty noses and erotic fantasies prowl into others’ lives’.
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Maria Vorontsova is now deputy dean of Moscow State University.
