{More Swiss media confirmed Saturday that Vladimir Putin is the father of a bouncing baby girl, giving the lie to the Kremlin\u2019s determined efforts to deny the story.}<\/p>\n
The Russian president\u2019s much younger girlfriend, Alina Kabaeva, delivered the girl \u201cat least a couple of weeks ago\u201d at the Clinica Sant\u2019Anna in Sorengo, Switzerland, a suburb of Lugano, says Corriere Del Ticino, a Swiss newspaper.<\/p>\n
But the 62-year-old Putin was not present for his daughter\u2019s birth, according to that newspaper and other Swiss reports.<\/p>\n
The local branch of Swiss broadcaster RSI reported that Kabaeva, 31, booked two rooms at the ultra-private clinic, which caters to the rich and famous.<\/p>\n
Kabaeva had also been seen recently in the main plaza in Lugano, Switzerland\u2019s biggest Italian-speaking city, another paper, Neue Z\u00fcrcher Zeitung, reported.<\/p>\n
And an unusual number of Russian-registered cars were spotted around Lugano earlier this month, local site Ticino News reported.<\/p>\n
The stories add details to a report of the birth in the Swiss tabloid Blick. But the new Swiss reports contradicted Blick\u2019s claim that Putin jetted to Switzerland to witness his daughter\u2019s birth, which it said was last week.<\/p>\n
Clinica Sant\u2019Anna has handled high-profile births before. Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi\u2019s daughter, Barbara, delivered a child there in 2009 to avoid photographers and gossip in Italy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is said that Putin may have chosen [the clinic in] Sorengo on the advice of his friend Silvio Berlusconi,\u201d reported Giornale InInsubria, which covers the lake region of Italy.<\/p>\n
The clinic has declined to comment.<\/p>\n
The Kremlin has long denied any relationship between Putin and Kabaeva, a former Olympic gymnast and former member of the Duma, Russia\u2019s parliament.<\/p>\n
A year ago, Putin finalized his divorce from Lyudmila Putina, his wife of 30 years. He has two adult daughters from that marriage.<\/p>\n
On Friday, Putin\u2019s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, denied that Putin is a father again. He also tried to quash rumors of Putin\u2019s poor health by saying he was tired of hearing reporters ask about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve already said this a hundred times. This isn\u2019t funny anymore,\u201d he told Reuters.<\/p>\n
Those rumors were spurred by Putin\u2019s absence from public events in the last few weeks. Putin was last seen in public on March 5, when he met with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.<\/p>\n
The tiny Russian community in Italian-speaking Switzerland welcomed news of Putin\u2019s love child.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m happy for them,\u201d said Tatiana Tettamanti, secretary for the Russian Church of Switzerland.<\/p>\n
But she added, \u201cI feel a bit sorry for Putin\u2019s ex-wife.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{More Swiss media confirmed Saturday that Vladimir Putin is the father of a bouncing baby girl, giving the lie to the Kremlin\u2019s determined efforts to deny the story.} The Russian president\u2019s much younger girlfriend, Alina Kabaeva, delivered the girl \u201cat least a couple of weeks ago\u201d at the Clinica Sant\u2019Anna in Sorengo, Switzerland, a suburb […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000068004,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[75],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-18937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people","tag-homenews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000068004,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton18937.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton18937.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton18937.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton18937.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton18937.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton18937.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000068004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18937"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=18937"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=18937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}