Olga Litvinenko

Olga Vladimirovna Litvinenko (Russian: Ольга Владимировна Литвиненко; born 1983) is a Russian ex-politician and the daughter of Vladimir Litvinenko, a close friend of Vladimir Putin's and in the words of Olga, "the richest rector in Russia" and an "oligarch".[1] Olga has accused her father of kidnapping her daughter.

In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming conventions, the patronymic is Vladimirovna and the family name is Litvinenko.

Career

Olga was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Saint Petersburg[2] from 2007 to 2011.[1]

Her father Vladimir is the rector of the Saint Petersburg Mining Institute and owns a 5% share in Phosagro, which owns a phosphate mine in the Arctic.[3] The mine had been at one time partly owned by the currently imprisoned Mikhail Khodorkovsky.[3] Vladimir claims that he did some consulting for the company in 2004 for which he received the shares.[3] The stock is now worth about $260,000,000[3] after Phosagro was floated on the London Stock Exchange in July 2011.[3] Vladimir Putin went to the Saint Petersburg Mining Institute where he received a degree in 1996, under Vladimir Litvinenko's guidance. Putin has been accused of plagiarising large sections of his dissertation.[4]

In May 2010, Vladimir and his wife Tatyana were looking after Olga's daughter Ester-Maria Litvinenko (born 2009), and refused to give her back to Olga.[2] Olga has described this as a kidnapping and has instigated legal proceedings to get her daughter back. Olga describes her father as "the richest rector in Russia" and an "oligarch" ("самый богатый ректор России, олигарх"[1]). In summer 2011, Vladimir reported to the police that Olga and her other child, Michael Stefan, had been kidnapped and Olga's assets were subsequently frozen.[2] Olga and her other children, Sarah, Dina and Michael Stefan, are living in London. Olga is still fighting to get her daughter Ester-Maria back.[5]

References
  1. "Ольга Литвиненко". Ester-Maria.com. Archived from the original on 17 July 2018. Retrieved 8 June 2012.
  2. "Дочь Владимира Литвиненко: У моего отца "синдром Ивана Грозного" Подробнее". Rosbalt.ru. 24 April 2012. Retrieved 23 May 2021.
  3. Kramer, Andrew E.; Herszenhorn, David M. (1 March 2012). Written at Saint Petersburg. "Midas Touch in St. Petersburg: Friends of Putin Glow Brightly". The New York Times. Manhattan. Retrieved 23 May 2021.
  4. "It All Boils Down to Plagiarism". Cdi.org. 31 March 2006. Archived from the original on 6 August 2009. Retrieved 2 March 2010. Clifford Gaddy: "Mr. Litvinenko -- who was directly involved in the dissertation, allegedly helped [Putin] choose the topic and was more or less the advisor for the dissertation -- is himself a member of the higher accreditation commission, which is the government-appointed body to be the watchdog over standards about degree-granting, dissertations and quality control for higher education in Russia. So it’s extra scandalous that he would be involved in this case of, at minimum, shoddiness and plagiarism, possibly something worse, which would be the literal purchase, either by money or political influence, of a dissertation by someone who didn’t actually do the work. That second point is not clear. I don’t have proof about that. All I have is proof about the plagiarism."
  5. Campbell, Matthew (22 May 2021). "They kidnapped my daughter, says mother who stood up to Putin clique". The Times. Retrieved 23 May 2021.
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