In its article, Reuters said referring to Akimov that Katerina Tikhonova, the head of the Innopraktika Company, was a daughter of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
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The report, published Tuesday, said Katerina Tikhonova was “emerging as a woman of influence in the next generation of Moscow’s elite”.
Tikhonova runs the Innopraktika fund, which is, among others, supported by Russian lender Gazprombank.
After the piece was published Tuesday, Russia’s Tass state news agency quoted Peskov as telling journalists: “I can refute the information that was stated by Reuters, because Reuters indicated that Akimov said that such and such a citizen is the daughter of Putin”.
Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov has refuted a report by Reuters claiming that Katerina Tikhonova, a billionaire acrobatic rock’n’roll dancer, is Russian President Vladimir Putin’s daughter, the TASS news agency reported.
Gazprombank’s Akimov also is an Innopraktika trustee, but the Reuters investigation quoted him as saying the bank chose to support Moscow State University projects “irrespective of any family connections”.
“As for who Putin’s daughter is, I can not tell you anything because I do not have and I am not supposed to have this information”. “Mr. Akimov spoke to Reuters for recording”. Gazprombank added: “Akimov made no such statements”.
Peskov seems to have grown more certain of this opinion relatively recently. He also said Gazprombank’s “global idea of supporting scientific development” coincided with the project.
It reported that Ms Tikhonova has described herself as the spouse of Kirill Shamalov, who has a stake in a gas and petrochemical company worth about $2 billion and is the son of an old friend of Mr Putin.
The possible family connection between Tikhonova and Putin surfaced first on the blog of Geneva-based Russian blogger Oleg Kashin.
Since then, a source close to the MSU Mechanics and Mathematics Faculty confirmed to OCCRP that Tikhonova is Putin’s daughter.
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The MSU’s website contains Tikhonova’s email address, registered in the domain innopraktika.ru, and her full name.
