President Vladimir Putin’s oldest daughter Maria Vorontsova has given a rare interview in which she described Russia as a “human-centric” state, the investigative news website Agentstvo reported Thursday.
Putin has never publicly acknowledged Vorontsova and her younger sister Katerina Tikhonova as his daughters, while the Kremlin has kept details of their lives a closely guarded secret.
“For us, the value of human life is a supreme value,” Vorontsova said in a Dec. 16 interview with Medtech.Mocsow, a non-profit affiliated with the Moscow Mayor’s Office.
“Russia is a human-centric society,” she added.
During the interview, Vorontsova, an endocrinologist, also talked about global medical advances and shared details about her literary, musical and athletic interests.
Interview host and CEO of Medtech.Moscow, Vyacheslav Shulenin, did not mention Vorontsova’s association with Putin during the conversation.
Agentstvo reports that Shulenin had served in the Moscow Mayor’s Office between 2013 and 2017, with his last post there listed as first deputy chief of staff.
The investigative outlet notes that Vorontsova’s 42-minute interview is widely promoted on the Russian social network Vkontakte, where it has nearly 225,000 views.
On YouTube, the video generated fewer than 1,000 views.
The United States and other Western nations have sanctioned both Vorontsova and Tikhonova in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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