Putin puts biography authors on ‘kill list’

Vladimir Putin “has added two investigative journalists to a Kremlin kill list” after their explosive new biography alleged the Russian president manipulated a young companion and described his late father as even more unhinged than Putin himself, security sources tell Knewz.com. Insiders say research carried out by Roman Badanin, 46, and Mikhail Rubin, 42 — co-authors of The Tsar in Person: How Vladimir Putin Fooled Us All — has triggered direct threats from Moscow.

The authors have published lurid details of Putin’s private life and family history in their newly released tome. The book alleges the 72-year-old leader had a secret relationship with 17-year-old calendar girl Alisa Kharcheva and portrays his father as a violent bully who once gouged out a woman’s eye with a pitchfork. Russian exiles say the Kremlin’s response has been brutal — and are “warning the writers they could now be in Putin’s firing line.” As a source explained to Knewz.com, “When authors expose Putin’s private corruption, they are marked for death. This book unmasks both the dictator and his family, and that is why they have been put on Putin’s long kill list. They are going to spend the rest of their lives watching their backs, wherever they live.” According to another insider, “The Kremlin wants this material buried. Putin is terrified of being seen as a predator and the son of a lunatic.”

Model rewarded with luxury perks

According to the authors, Putin’s aides allegedly arranged for Kharcheva to visit his suburban residence soon after her calendar was published. The model, now 32, later enrolled at Moscow’s elite MGIMO University despite previously failing entry exams elsewhere, which critics described as “a reward from Putin.” And in 2015, she acquired a luxury Moscow apartment through businessman Grigory Baevsky, an associate of oligarch Arkady Rotenberg, who’s one of the Russian leader’s oldest friends. When asked in 2016 about her property deal, Kharcheva said she “bought this flat with a mortgage. And we pay that mortgage to this day.” The new book on Putin also revisits a notorious blog post in which Kharcheva marked Putin’s 60th birthday with the slogan “P**** for Putin,” posing with a kitten and a portrait of the leader. She quickly deleted it, removing her old photos from public view.

His father’s behavior

Even more shocking are the claims about Putin’s father, Vladimir Spiridonovich. “He broke through the gate with a pitchfork and hit [the president’s mother, Maria Putina] right in the face. In short, he accidentally gouged out her eye,” villager Anfisa Kormilitsyna says in the book. She added that Putina’s family forced Spiridonovich to marry her to avoid a trial. Co-author Badanin claims Putin’s father “was a man notorious for lifting … girls’ skirts and humiliating them.” Putin has presented his parents as models of virtue, once declaring, “Never did I see my father drunk. I never heard a single swear word from him.”

The Kremlin has long sought to quash unflattering accounts of Putin’s life and activities, even as Western intelligence agencies have repeatedly accused the Russian leader of authorizing assassinations abroad, including the poisonings of Alexander Litvinenko and Sergei Skripal.