The glitzy lifetime of Putin’s former son-in-law who now faces Britain’s largest ever sanctions

He’s considered one of Vladimir Putin’s named cronies who’ve been hit this week with sanctions designed to inflict ‘most and lasting ache’ on Russia.

However little has been shared concerning the former-son-in-law of the Russian President, who was blasted by the West for bringing warfare again to the European theatre.

Enterprise tycoon, lawyer and petrochemical magnate Kirill Shamalov, 39, had already been topic to US-backed sanctions in 2018 after he was publicly named because the partner of Putin’s youngest daughter.  

Often called Russia’s youngest billionaire, Kirill was married to Katerina Tikhonova for 5 years from 2013 to 2018, making him the President’s former son-in-law. 

The pictures from Shamalov and Katerina’s three-day nuptials on the Igora ski resort in Russia in 2013 break Putin’s taboo over by no means revealing particulars of his household life. 

Kirill and Katerina additionally dabbled in overseas property, together with a £4million four-storey seaside villa in Biarritz on the southwest coast of France, which reportedly holds a particular place in Putin’s coronary heart.

As husband and spouse, the pair are understood to have amassed an enormous company portfolio of wealth that exceeded $2billion (£1.4bn), earlier than their cut up in 2018. 

Under, MailOnline particulars the deep hyperlinks the Shamalov household has to Putin’s regime and delves into the lifetime of luxurious led by considered one of Russia’s youngest-ever billionaires. 

The Shamalov household’s shut ties to Putin 

Kirill, now 39, and Katerina, 35, are amongst a brand new era of Russians who take pleasure in aristocrat-like privileges, acquire positions of energy and amass large private wealth from their well-connected households. 

Earlier than he had even graduated from college, Kirill was appointed Gazprom’s Chief Authorized Counsel for overseas financial exercise in 2002. He was simply 20 on the time.

Three years later, he turned ‘Chief Authorized Counsel’ at Gazprombank, then nonetheless a subsidiary of Gazprom earlier than becoming a member of Sibur, the nation’s largest petrochemical firm as a vp in 2008.

His father Nikolai, an in depth pal to Putin’s regime, stays a deputy chairman on the agency’s board and is a shareholder in Financial institution Rossiya, which intelligence officers have beforehand referred to as the ‘private financial institution’ for Russia’s elite and was hit with sanctions.

Whereas Kirill grew up within the Nineties, his father co-founded The Ozero Cooperative, a growth of ‘dachas’ close to St Petersburg, with Putin. Varied members of the Ozero growth went on to prominence in Putin’s Russia.  

Kirill’s fortunes started to skyrocket quickly after his marriage ceremony to the president’s daughter, a aggressive acrobatic dancer who helped oversee a $1.7billion growth of Moscow State College.  

Inside 18 months of their ceremony and at simply age 26, Shamalov was catapulted into the Forbes checklist of the world’s richest individuals and was amongst Russia’s youngest ever billionaires after buying a 17% stake in Sibur from oligarch Gennady Timchenko, one other Putin ally who has been hit with latest sanctions. 

The deal raised eyebrows amongst international observers when it was later revealed that Shamalov reportedly paid simply $100 (£74.73) for shares that had an estimated market worth exceeding $380million (£283million). 

Alexei Navalny, anti-corruption activist and chief of Russia’s opposition, claimed on the time the transaction was a Putin-directed ‘marriage ceremony present of $380million’. 

Shamalov has beforehand denied shopping for the shares for simply $100.

A ‘secret’ marriage ceremony to Putin’s daughter

In February 2013, Kirill and Katerina wed in a ceremony on the Igora ski resort, nestled within the snow-capped hills that are a stone’s throw north from St Petersburg.

No expense was spared on the celebration and the joyful couple rode round inside a conventional Russian sleigh that had been drawn by three white horses.

The bride wore an extended pearl-tinted marriage ceremony gown, the groom wore a darkish overcoat. Visitors wore white scarves embroidered with the letters ‘Okay&Okay’ in crimson thread.

However all 100 of these in attendance had been sworn to secrecy and needed to go away their telephones behind. 

Guards had been posted on each nook of the resort. And no-one who has ever spoken out about that day has given their identify publicly. 

‘Guards had been behind each nook, (they) did not let anybody near the celebration,’ stated a employees member on the resort, which is about amid woodland with a picturesque lake and has an expensive spa advanced. 

‘However we knew it was Kirill and Katerina – Putin’s daughter – celebrating marriage.’   

The Igora ski resort lies lower than 20 miles from the Ozero dacha cooperative. The resort and surrounding plots of land are owned by corporations with previous or current connections to Shamalov, Timchenko and different Putin allies.  

Putin himself has been often known as a frequent customer to the world – although he all the time stayed discreetly in a neighbouring compound behind a tall fence. 

Leisure included an indoor ice-skating show, laser lights, and a mock-up Russian village with performers and cultural displays, in keeping with an individual who attended. 

The marriage organisers needed no images leaking out on social media, and the VIPs had been shielded from the resort’s common employees. Just one verified, black and white, picture of their celebration was ever launched. 

At one level, an emblem was projected on the snow, exhibiting the names Kirill and Katerina, stated one other employee talking on the situation of anonymity in 2015.

However the employee added: ‘We’re not allowed to speak about this. I will be fired – whose daughter it was.’  

That day’s marriage ceremony celebrations supplied a helpful glimpse into the truth of life as an elite in Putin’s Russia, with rich visitors shielded from public gaze.  

However the joyful couple went their separate methods in 2018 after Shamalov reportedly began courting London-based socialite Zhanna Volkova, simply 5 years after he wed into Russia’s strongest household.   

Zhanna and Kirill would marry and toured the world collectively as a household, visiting London, Greece, Italy, Switzerland and France.

However they had been concerned in a high-profile cut up in 2020 and talking with Tatler journal, Ms Volkova claimed Kirill ‘doesn’t know easy methods to finish a relationship with dignity and doesn’t even wish to clarify himself to a girl with whom he has been collectively for a few years.’

She added: ‘I consider that actual males exist. However, sadly, in Russia, the sensation of impunity drastically corrupts males who boast of influential patrons.’ 

Ms Volkova, who lives in London together with her twin sister and kids, has been contacted to offer remark. 

A twin lifetime of luxurious in Russia and on the French coast

Kirill has been recognized to guide a lifetime of luxurious each in his homeland and overseas and he and his then-wife, Katerina, had deliberate to stay an expensive joint life in Russia and France.

The couple reportedly spent thousands and thousands of {dollars} furnishing actual property close to to Putin’s residence and within the French seaside resort of Biarritz. They spent almost £50,000 on a carpet and greater than £5,000 on Japanese books alone. 

Zhanna Volkova, his ex-wife, would later allege that Kirill was all the time fascinated about ‘ladies with wealth, self-confidence and with out materials issues’.  

RBC, an impartial information company, additionally claimed Shamalov appeared in a VIP-box on the 2015 Components One Grand Prix in Sochi, gained by Lewis Hamilton. 

Sources declare the Shamalov household have a love for vehicles. 

Kirill and his older brother, Yuri, had been stated to be common members at rallies in Moscow and had been reported seen arriving to at least one such occasion in a uncommon Nineteen Thirties Mercedes.

The Shamalov brothers are recognized to have deep connections to different members of the Putin elite who reshaped Russia’s economic system within the 2000s and made private fortunes doing so. 

One is Gennady Timchenko, who turned a shareholder in Financial institution Rossiya together with their father, Nikolai Shamalov. Timchenko has recognized Putin for greater than 20 years. 

Within the Nineties, he started oil buying and selling from St. Petersburg, when Putin was a rising politician there, and went on to co-found Gunvor, an organization that grew to be one of many largest merchants of Russian oil. 

In 2014, the U.S. authorities alleged that Putin had a private stake in Gunvor, although it provided no proof of this. Gunvor denied the allegation.

Timchenko was an essential contact for Kirill Shamalov after the oil-trading magnate later turned a big shareholder in Sibur. 

Kirill can be understood to have ventured into overseas property market after buying a chic 300sq metre residence within the seaside resort of Biarritz – recognized to be a lovely vacationer vacation spot for rich Russians. 

Members of Russia’s nineteenth century imperial aristocracy would go to Biarritz’s Hôtel du Palais, a former palace constructed within the 1850s for French Empress Eugénie. 

Previous to Putin assuming the presidency, it was reported that he was personally contacted by the Kremlin whereas vacationing with household within the French city. It was in Biarritz that the spy chief was advised by Boris Yeltsin he would turn into his successor. 

And within the early 2000s, Russia unusually appointed an honorary consul to the tiny city, regardless of close by cities of Bordeaux and Toulouse, which boast a lot larger populations, not having any comparable diplomatic outposts. 

‘It was as a result of Putin’s circle has an affection for this place,’ Alexandre de Miller de La Cerda, the city’s consul and descendant of Russian the Aristocracy, was quoted as saying in Time journal.