Dozens of Putin's bodyguards have been flying foreign trips with his daughter Katerina Tikhonova for years, escorting her on dates or spa hotels. According to Important Stories, millions of budget rubles were spent on flights. Booking hotels for Tikhonova and security was handled by Aleksey Skripchak, an employee of the presidential security service, whose e-mail archive was at the disposal of Important Stories.

The main travel direction of Tikhonova and numerous security guards was Germany, where her chosen one Igor Zelensky worked. Flights there were made almost every month.

According to Skripchak's mail archive, between 2016 and 2021, he booked a hotel for security guards serving Tikhonova almost 100 times. A third of the bookings were made in Russia, more than 40 in Germany, the rest were made in Austria and Italy.

Booking a hotel for so many accompanying people cost more than a million rubles in just one trip, the newspaper notes. “There is no data in the Skripchak archive about who paid for these trips, but, obviously, business trips of SBP employees were paid from the budget,” Important Stories write.

The relationship between Tikhonova and the former head of the Bavarian State Ballet Igor Zelensky was reported in the media in May. Zelensky's ballet contract was due to end in 2025, but he announced his retirement in April for family reasons. Allegedly , he was fired due to his refusal to publicly condemn the war unleashed by Russia in Ukraine.