The younger daughter of Russian President Putin is said to have traveled to Germany more than 20 times in recent years to meet her lover. According to a report, the security authorities did not notice anything - although they were allegedly accompanied by bodyguards from the Presidential Guard.
The German security authorities have missed numerous trips by a daughter of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Bavaria. According to research by "Spiegel" and the Russian investigative platform "IStories", Katerina Tikhonova has probably flown to Germany more than twenty times since 2015. She was accompanied by suspected armed bodyguards from the Russian Presidential Guard FSO. The police and intelligence services apparently did not notice these tours for years, although Putin's younger daughter and her bodyguards mostly came to Germany under their real names.
The trips can be reconstructed from booking documents that are available to "Spiegel" and "IStories". These are leaked passenger data, passport copies and internal emails from the Russian security apparatus. Accordingly, Tikhonowa temporarily used an Italian EU visa with the number ITA031963667 for her trips to Germany.
When she entered the country, she probably showed her passport and visa to the federal police at the airport and was waved through – this cannot be reconstructed in detail. In principle, entry data is not recorded in Germany. Apparently there is also no note from the officials about Tikhonova's transfer to German territory. According to the report, the German intelligence services are of the opinion that they are not responsible for travel by relatives of foreign despots. The security authorities only noticed one trip at the end of 2019 – albeit coincidentally. An observation yielded no further information.
"Armed bodyguards from the Russian Presidential Guard are slipping through Bavaria unnoticed and nobody cares," criticizes the SPD interior expert and member of the Bundestag Sebastian Fiedler. The case is "an illustrious example" of "that we have not developed any strategies over the past few decades to counter the Russian agents and their activities. We cannot continue like this." Germany must "confront a regime that unleashes a war of aggression in Europe with a significant increase in the operational capabilities of the security authorities".
According to the report, the reason for Tikhonowa's trips to Bavaria is probably the man with whom she has been in a relationship for a long time: Igor Selensky. The Russian artist, who is not related to the Ukrainian president of the same name, was head of the Bavarian State Ballet until April of this year and is believed to be the father of Tikhonova's four-year-old daughter.
