VLADIMIR Putin has hidden his alleged mistress and her four young children in Switzerland as the war with Ukraine rages on, sources claim.

Olympic gold-winning gymnast Alina Kabaeva reportedly has four children with the Russian president, 69, although the pair have never officially confirmed it.

Kabaeva, 38, is said to be "holed up in a very private and very secure chalet in Switzerland," a source told Page Six.

"Alina has two young boys and twin girls with Putin who were born in Switzerland," the source added.

"The kids all have Swiss passports, and I imagine she does also."

Kabaeva has been linked to the Russian leader for more than 13 years and vanished from her home country in 2018 amid rumours she had given birth to Putin's twins.

She is reported to have given birth to boys in April 2020 at a Moscow clinic.

The former MP in President Putin's United Russia party posed semi-nude for a men's magazine in 2004 and was once dubbed "Russia's most flexible woman".

Photographer Mikhail Korolov, who snapped the shoot for Maxim, said previously: "I didn't even need to persuade her. She behaved very naturally. She's full of sex.

Putin allegedly met Kabaeva around this time, when he was married and she was in a relationship with a police officer.

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He was pictured giving her a medal in 2001 before she was stripped of six of her world championship medals for doping.

Talk of romance between the pair was first hinted at in 2008 when a newspaper owned by Putin's ex-KGB spy colleague Alexander Lebedev alleged a relationship.

In response, Lebedev shut down the newspaper citing financial difficulties, but a source at the paper insisted at the time the story was right.

Putin himself responded to the claims, hitting out at "those who with their snotty noses and erotic fantasies prowl into others' lives".

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In July 2008, the newspaper Sobesednik claimed Alina pulled out of a TV ice show "because of her pregnancy," but the report soon vanished from websites.

The following spring, the tabloid Gazeta Express claimed Alina had given birth.

At the 2012 Winter Olympics in the Russian city of Sochi, Alina, who is 31 years younger than Putin, turned up with what appeared to be a wedding ring, while Putin was still married to his wife Lyudmila.

In a TV interview later that year, she didn't deny the relationship and when asked if she had met someone she wanted to marry, replied: "Yes, I have."

Putin announced his divorce from the mother of his two adult children in 2013, and a spokesman denied he was having an affair, claiming he was too busy.

By 2015, Alina was reported to be living the life of a First Lady of Russia, with a fleet of limousines at her disposal and a squad of machine gun-toting security guards for her protection.

She was also appointed chair of the National Media Group – Russia's most-important pro-Kremlin TV and newspaper empire – despite no experience in the field.

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