Vladimir Putin’s “mistress” has saluted his war propagandists who regularly threaten nuclear war as being as important as Kalashnikov machine guns.
Russians are engaged in a “fight for our country” almost a year after his disastrous invasion of Ukraine, warned Alina Kabaeva, 39.
An Olympic gold-winning rhythmic gymnast who is believed to share a secret family with the dictator, 70, she normally shuns the limelight.
But wearing what appeared to be a wedding ring plus a prominent Z-badge, symbol of Russia’s bloody war, she spoke at a Moscow event marking the founding of strongly pro-Putin National Media Group [NMG], which she nominally heads.
“Let’s wish success to every one of us, and to all of us together,” said Kabaeva, who is Russia’s undisclosed first lady.
“Our people need this success. Because information work....in the conditions we live today, and the fight for our country - it is like a combat weapon.”
By "information work" she means propaganda.
The Putin-obedient media was “not at all inferior in its significance to the Kalashnikov machine gun," she said.
"War correspondents are well aware of this.”
Clenching her fist, she demanded: “Let’s keep working.”
Putin’s stranglehold on the state media, and NMG, with prominent tub-thumping propagandists, is seen as the reason Russians are not more hostile to the war.
There is no record that she and Putin are married, and the Kremlin has previously denied a relationship.
Yet few believe the denials and she is sanctioned by the West for her closeness to the despot.
Yet her speech was watched by Putin’s prominent spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who is married to Olympic skater Tatiana Navka, 47, a close Kabaeva friend.
Next to Peskov in the audience was flame-haired glamour spy Anna Chapman, now 40, expelled from the US and deprived of her UK passport in 2010 after being exposed as a Putin foreign intelligence asset.
She has since become a pro-Putin web propagandist and TV presenter.
Peskov, 55, read a telegram of support for the NMG anniversary saying the company - set up a close oligarch friend - has “done a lot to develop and increase the competitiveness of domestic media”.
In fact, opposition journalists have been jailed or forced into exile, while some have suffered suspicious deaths during his rule.
Alongside Chapman was leading Putin propagandist and media executive Dmitry Kiselyov.
He notoriously told viewers that Russia should “plunge Britain into the depths of the sea” in a nuclear attack with its “underwater robotic drone Poseidon” causing a 1,640ft tsunami.
He threatened: “The explosion of this thermonuclear torpedo close to Britain's shores will raise a giant wave, a tsunami, up to 500 metres [1,640ft] high.
"This tidal wave is also a carrier of extremely high doses of radiation.
“Surging over Britain, it will turn what is probably left of them into radioactive desert.”
Kabaeva has only been seen a handful of times during the war leading to her nickname “The Invisible Princess”.
While she is a leading sportswoman and celebrity in Russia, and heads a staunchly pro-Kremlin media empire, her suspected status as Putin’s partner is off limits to the media even though they were first romantically linked together a decade-and-a-half ago.
“She is alleged to have a close personal relationship with Putin,” said the UK in imposing the sanctions.
Canadian foreign affairs minister Melanie Joly initially called her "a person very close to Putin”.
Then she added: "I don't know (what) to call her, but his partner, yes, I guess.”
The EU labelled her “a close associate” of Putin.
Earlier in the war, there were claims Kabaeva was hiding in a Swiss bolthole, or even a hi-tech Siberian “underground city bunker”.
Her salary at this group, which controls multiple pro-Putin TV and newspaper outlets, has been estimated at almost £8 million a year, or £21,900 a day, compared with the Russian average annual figure of £5,600.
Putin - who in 2013 announced his divorce from wife Lyudmila, a former Aeroflot stewardess - has previously said: "I have a private life in which I do not permit interference. It must be respected.”
He deplored "those who with their snotty noses and erotic fantasies prowl into others' lives”.
Kabaeva is on record as saying she had met a man who "I love very much”, gushing: "Sometimes you feel so happy that you even feel scared."
Kabaeva once posed almost nude for Maxim magazine and was described as “full of sex” by a photographer.
There have been many reports of her wearing a wedding ring, but no records of a marriage.
She is reported to have a fleet of Maybach limousines at her disposal, and was seen surrounded by a squad of machine-gun toting security guards on visits to a Moscow cafe, likely indicating she qualifies for state-level security.
