- Russian President Vladimir Putin's daughter is continuing to publish in Western journals.
- This is despite sanctions designed to punish Putin's inner circle over the Ukraine invasion.
Vladimir Putin's daughter, Maria Vorontsova, is continuing to publish her research in Western academic journals despite attempts to isolate the Russian president's family over the Ukraine war.
Vorontosova, Putin's eldest daughter, is a researcher at Moscow State University specialising in endocrinology, or the study of the system in the body that regulates hormones.
Since February 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine, she been credited as a co-author of several papers in MDPI, an open source Swiss publication.
In February 2022, shortly before the invasion, she was also published in a journal associated with the US Endocrine Society.
Independent Russian media outlet Mozhem Obyasnit and the Moscow Times first reported the story.
The three articles published in MPDI publications appeared in 2022 and 2023, according to Vorontsova's university research profile.
The article in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, which is published by the US Endocrine Society, appeared in the same months as Russia's invasion, which was launched on February 24.
A spokeswoman for the society told Insider that the article had first appeared online in September 2021, and was run in the print edition of the journal that February.
"The Endocrine Society can confirm that it does not now have any business relationship with, or contractual obligation due, Dr. Vorontsova since the Russian-Ukrainian conflict began," the spokeswoman said.
Insider has contacted MDPI for comment.
Putin has long shielded the identities of his children, and sought to keep them out of the media, but details of their lives and careers have gradually emerged.
Vorontsova is one of two daughters Putin had with his first wife, Lyudmila Putina, and graduated with a degree in medicine from Moscow State University in 2011. She went on to conduct research in endocrine diseases in children, which according to the US government are personally monitored by Putin Reuters reported that the project receives funding from Mikhail Fridman, a banker with ties to the Kremlin.
Vorontsova was reportedly married to a Dutch businessman and lived for a while in the Netherlands before moving back to Moscow, where they divorced.
Her sister, Katerina Tikhoniva, is a dancer and also works in a senior position at Moscow State University, Reuters reported.
The sisters have both taken different surnames in an apparent attempt to disguise their identities, and though Tikhonova's is thought to be taken from her maternal grandmother the source of Vorontsova's is unknown.
In the wake of the Ukraine invasion, the US and other Western allies of Ukraine imposed sanctions on Putin's family. The US Treasury said Maria Vorontsova leads "state-funded programs that have received billions of dollars from the Kremlin toward genetics research and are personally overseen by Putin."
Vorontsova is not banned from publishing in Western journals under the sanctions regime.
Putin himself faces arrest if he travels to some foreign countries, after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for him over alleged war crimes committed by his forces in Ukraine.