Katerina Tikhonova, 32, divorced from Russia’s youngest billionaire Kirill Shamalov, has emerged as a talented inventor, it is reported. She is due to defend her PhD thesis in physics and mathematics at the end of May in front of some of the country’s most eminent academics. Earlier there was speculation that Putin is quietly grooming her for “tsardom”, with claims she could one day succeed him in the Kremlin.
Tikhonova, who uses her mother Lyudmila’s maiden name, is widely believed to be Putin’s younger daughter, although this has never been officially confirmed with the Kremlin strongman insisting on total secrecy over his family life.
She came to light earlier with her spectacular “boogle woogle” Acrobatic Rock’n’roll performances in dance competitions.
Now she is heading towards a PhD at Moscow State University after completing a study on helping cosmonauts and pilots to orientate themselves in difficult conditions, reported Open Media.
The moves brings her more into the limelight after a rare TV appearance in December.
The technology involves a number of “devices” assisting the sense of balance.
The will reportedly have medical benefits for patients suffering from vestibular problems.
Her work involves correcting signals received by the brain from the inner ear, it is understood.
She has won praise from the university’s 80 year old rector Viktor Sadovnichiy – who will oversee her PhD honour – for demonstrating “her ability to be an independent,motivated, focused and industrious researcher, who is well operating modern mathematical methods and capable of not only solving rather difficult problems of analysis and synthesis of mechanical and bio-mechanical systems management”.
Meanwhile he and Tikhonova are reported to share one patent and four computer applications.
She is defending her doctorate without completing any postgraduate course, it is reported.
But her closest collaborator Vladimir Alexandrov has called her an “enthusiast for science” and she has a string of scientific research publications to her name.
Among those involved will be eminent Dr Vladimir Soloviyov, an ex-cosmonaut and deputy general director of missile and rocket maker RKK Energia, along with other top scientists.
For her day job, Tikhonova is head of Innopraktika foundation, a $1.7 billion development project creating a science centre at Moscow State University.
Two years ago Putin biographer Natalia Gevorkyan speculated Katerina could be his chosen heir in 2024.
“Putin does not have a (male) heir – at least officially – but he has two daughters, and one of them, Ekaterina, has already entered the public space with several huge and costly projects,” she wrote for Radio Svoboda website.
“In 2024, Ekaterina will be 38.
“In theory, she can take part in the presidential elections and provide a calm time in old age for her father and his closest friends.”
Other analysis’s are dismissive believing Putin is grooming former secret services personnel and testing them for the succession.
Under the Russian constitution, Putin would be disqualified from standing again in 2024, when he will be 71.
Katerina – christened Ekaterina – has an elder sister Maria, 33, is reportedly married to a Dutch businessman with whom she has a daughter, making Putin a grandfather.
Katerina last year Shamalov, 35, when he swapped Putin’s daughter for seductive socialite Zhanna Volkova after five years of marriage.
Putin has previously said of his two daughters with ex-wife Lyudmila: “They have never been ‘star’ children.
“They have never got pleasure from the spotlight being directed on them.
“They just live their own lives.
“They live in Russia … They have never been educated anywhere except Russia.
“I am proud of them.”