At the beginning of February 2025, a text went viral in messengers and social networks, the anonymous author of which claimed: the eldest daughter of the President of the Russian Federation, Maria Vorontsova, organized a mobile hospital “in the zone of a special military operation,” helped treat soldiers and was herself wounded as a result of enemy shelling. At the request of "Verified" social anthropologist Alexandra Arkhipova I figured out where this newsletter came from and what aspirations of the pro-war audience are reflected in it.
The story of the alleged feat of Maria Vorontsova, who treated wounded Russian soldiers in a combat zone, began to actively spread on February 2–3. He gained the greatest popularity on WhatsApp, Telegram and other messengers, however, newsletter publications are also found in Facebook, Instagram, X, "Zene» and on other platforms. On VKontakte you can find examples of posts that have collected hundreds and even thousands reposts.
The newsletter itself looks like this (the author's spelling and punctuation are preserved):
"V.V. Putin’s daughter, Candidate of Medical Sciences, doctor of two specialties, famous endocrinologist and rheumatologist Maria Vorontsova, visited the Northern Military District zone with ordinary Russian soldiers. She organized a mobile hospital, where more than 10 thousand three hundred soldiers were treated.
In December 2024, the mobile hospital was surrounded by the enemy, who dropped cluster bombs. M.V. Vorontsova, together with medical staff and doctors, carried wounded soldiers out of the cars. Maria Vorontsova carried out four wounded people, and when she was helping the fifth, a mine exploded nearby. She herself received a concussion, but, having gathered herself, she continued to treat the wounded...
President Vladimir Putin modestly did not report this. Doctor Maria Vorontsova, having been wounded, was in the hospital, treated, and is now undergoing rehabilitation. Our president raised his daughter with dignity!
Many people will probably find out about this soon.
(information from warriors)"
According to the Yandex.Wordstat service, Internet users began to be interested in news on this topic on January 26, while the first few days the number of queries like “Putin’s daughter in the Northern Military District” or “Putin’s daughter was wounded” was relatively small. The newsletter actually went viral only on February 3, and soon its text posted some pro-war Telegram channels.
Who is Maria Vorontsova and how credible is the newsletter?
Vladimir Putin hides information about his children from the public. It is known that from his marriage to his wife Lyudmila, which was dissolved in 2013, the politician has two daughters: Maria and Katerina, born in 1985 and 1986 respectively. Putin never appeared with them at public events, and only a photograph of them as children was published on the Kremlin’s official website. Nevertheless authors numerous journalistic investigations found outthat the grown-up daughters of the Russian president live under different surnames: Maria - under the surname Vorontsova, Katerina - Tikhonova.
From answering direct questions about connections with these women, Putin consistently leaves, but when the United States imposed sanctions on them in April 2022, the press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov in his commentary actually recognized their relationship with his boss, accusing Washington in introducing “restrictions on family members.” It is noteworthy that government news agencies regularly telling about Vorontsova, she is never presented as Putin’s daughter, although the unknown author of the viral mailing does not question this fact.
Although in the text distributed via messengers Vorontsova is called a doctor of two specialties, there is no reason to consider her a practicing physician. In 2017, Putin's eldest daughter defended candidate's thesis at Moscow State University, this work was devoted to pediatric endocrinology. Mainly with this topic connected articles published under Vorontsova’s signature in academic journals, her reports at conferences and comments in the media. There is no information in public sources that she has been involved in rheumatology or direct patient care in recent years.
The viral text does not say where exactly, according to its authors, Vorontsova organized a mobile hospital and was injured. It is clarified that the events described occurred in December 2024. At the beginning of that month, the tabloid Ura.ru, citing sources reported, that Vorontsova will visit Kurgan in the near future, where she will discuss the creation of a medical university (Verified was unable to confirm that the visit took place). December 16, Putin's eldest daughter moderated discussion at a scientific forum in Moscow. December 20 took place meeting of the Academic Council of the Faculty of Fundamental Medicine of Moscow State University, in which consists of Vorontsova. There are no reports in authoritative sources that she went to a combat zone that month (or ever before), much less was wounded there.
Although the newsletter explains this as Putin’s “modesty” in keeping silent about his daughter’s “feat,” Kremlin-controlled media in general rarely write about Vorontsova (probably due to direct orders from the Russian presidential administration). Thus, on the website of the state agency TASS for 2024 published about one and a half dozen materials with her comments on the topic of science and health care and not a single one about the events of her life. Independent publications also publish news about Putin’s eldest daughter that is not related to her academic career: retell investigations by activists about her multimillion-dollar earnings in her own company, find her new patents, looking for leaked data about her flights, analyze the frequency of her appearances at various forums, etc. But these media, which quite closely monitor Vorontsova’s few public appearances, did not write anything about her appearance in the combat zone - on the contrary, some released notes exposing popular text.
Finally, the number of military personnel who were allegedly cured in the mobile hospital organized by Vorontsova also raises questions. The newsletter refers to thousands of people, while used mobile hospitals in the Russian army calculated for several dozen patients who can be quickly stabilized and prepared for sending to the rear for full treatment. At the same time, the viral text does not indicate the characteristics of the hospital and the duration of its operation, so it is not possible to carry out calculations and assess the plausibility of the described situation.
Yakut front story?
The earliest post discovered with a story about Putin’s daughter is one published on January 31 recording in the Telegram channel of Spiridon Borbuev. Until February last year he headed Department of Education of the Verkhnevilyuisky ulus (district) of the Republic of Sakha, as well as was functionary of the United Russia party at the local level. It is noteworthy that Borbuev’s post was almost entirely written in the Yakut language, most likely because it was intended for “his own people.” In Russian, only general information about Vorontsova is given after the Yakut text about her alleged feat. (Copyright spelling and punctuation preserved. - Ed.)
“V.V. Putin kyykha medical science candidate, ikki professionlaah doctor, biller endocrinologist uonna rheumatologist Maria Vorontsova borostuoy Arassyya soldiertaryn kytary SVO-ga syldybyt. Mobile hospital terisibit. Onno 10 tyһyynchattan takhsa three hundred soldier emtemmitter.
2024 pp. akhsynny yiga mobile hospitals өstөөkhtөr tөgүrүybүtter, Harsa suoh buombalaabyttar.
M.V. Vorontsova medical staff, byraastary kytta baahyrbyt sallaattary vagonnartan taaartyy syldybyt. Maria Vorontsova tүөrt bayyaһy sүgen tһaarbyt, beһis ranayyn byyһyy syryttҕyna, chugas mina estibit. Beyete oskuolka taptaran ram, berebeeskileteet, salgyy baakhyrbyttary emtii syldybyt...
President Vladimir Putin semeydik bu tuhunan billerbekke syldybyt. Doctor Maria Vorontsova baahyran hospital sytan, emtenen ram, biligin rehabilitation bara syldyar.
President of Kyykyn Berke Iippit 👍
Bu tukunan mantan yla elbekhte syrdatallara buoluo
Chakhchytyn bilbetim, ol eren, tyala suohkha mas khamsaabat. (based on unconfirmed information)
Maria Vladimirovna Vorontsova (born April 28, 1985, Leningrad) is a Russian pediatric endocrinologist, the eldest daughter of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Candidate of Medical Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Internal Medicine of the Faculty of Fundamental Medicine of Moscow State University, member of the Academic Council of Moscow State University.
Vorontsova and her team are studying molecular processes, namely the effect of parathyroid hormone on bone tissue, in particular stem cells.
In her free time from scientific activities, Vorontsova goes to theaters and museums, attends concerts of classical and jazz music. The doctor emphasizes that he devotes “at least a few hours a week” to sports, and is also interested in surfing and skiing.”
The viral text in Russian, usually ending with a note like “information from warriors” and which began to spread widely on February 3, and the earlier text in Yakut from Borbuev’s Telegram channel (hereinafter translated by Semyon Makarov *) are noticeably different.
These differences only seem unimportant. The text, written in the Yakut language, bears traces of two styles: on the one hand, the official, newspaper language, on the other, an oral story with folklore elements. The author allows colloquial expressions (“they bombed the hospital brazenly”, “a hospital for the three hundredth”, “putting the wounded on their backs”), and ends the story with a Yakut proverb, similar in meaning to the Russian one “there is no smoke without fire.” Moreover, this proverb completes the Yakut text in the same way as special formulas like “I was there too, I drank honey and beer, it flowed down my mustache, but it didn’t get into my mouth” at the end of Russian fairy tales. In the Russian text, all these features are leveled out, and at the end a reference to warriors is added, which should give the story credibility. The word “warriors” for Russian military personnel participating in the invasion of Ukraine is often used to describe their support groups (for example, the wives and mothers of those mobilized).
Particularly noteworthy is the fragment about the number of wounded who were allegedly cured in the hospital organized by Vorontsova. The Yakut text mentions “10 thousand “three hundred” soldiers.” This phrase is understandable to people associated with the front or familiar with modern military slang. "Three hundredth“is a wounded person, that is, we are talking about the treatment of 10,000 wounded soldiers. However, the author of the Russian translation missed this, and in his version Vorontsova allegedly cured more than 10,300 soldiers.
Thus, the Yakut text is clearly original to the Russian one. Between January 31 and February 3, it was translated, “smoothed out,” ethnic features were removed from it, and the mailing began to spread to a wider Russian-speaking audience.
However, Borbuev can hardly be considered the direct author of the version in the Yakut language. As can be seen from the graph above, Yandex users began to be interested in the news about the injury that Vorontsova allegedly received five days before his post. It can be assumed that this legend was told to him by a serviceman who came from the front, or Borbuev read it in a group chat, where there are a lot of similar folklore stories.
Why did this legend arise?
The story about the “feat” of Putin’s daughter is close in plot to episodes from the history of the 20th century, when the children of heads of state and monarchs participated in hostilities or worked on the home front. For example, during the First World War, the daughters of Nicholas II, Grand Duchesses Olga and Tatiana, were trained in nursing and worked as nurses in the Tsarskoye Selo Palace Hospital. In 1945, shortly after her 18th birthday, the daughter of British King George VI, the future Queen Elizabeth II, arrived to serve in the self-defense unit, where she trained as an auto mechanic. Both sons of Joseph Stalin also fought: in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp while attempting to escape was shot the eldest son, Yakov Dzhugashvili, and the youngest, Vasily, was a military pilot.
This fact in the biography of the ruler becomes for many people (usually his fans) proof of the sincerity of his rhetoric - “the ruler did not spare a little blood to protect his native people.” And in Russian, and in Ukrainian Calls to send the children of the elite to the front appear with varying degrees of regularity in the media space, and it is no coincidence that quotes on this topic attributed to Churchill And General Lebed, are very popular. The viral text about Vorontsova is apparently intended to show all doubters that Putin not only remembers the difficulties of Russians at the front, but also allegedly risked sending his own daughter to a hospital in a combat zone.
Proof of the existence of such a mythologeme are the words of the Z-writer Tatyana Marugova, one of the ardent defenders of the legend of Vorontsova. She published viral text in his Telegram channel on February 4. Two days later, when the mailing list noticed independent media and anti-war bloggers, Marugova wrote an angry post in which she accused the “liberal” of doubting the feat of Putin’s daughter. Her main argument goes like this (the author's spelling and punctuation are preserved):
“And lastly, and most importantly, only the enemy will bleat that this cannot be. By the squeals of these people you can determine who is against the authorities. Only those who hate Putin can be outraged by information about his daughter’s feat. This does not fit into their matrix. And I’ll add, it’s these people, I bet, who don’t think anything of Tsar Nicholas; it was his daughters who organized hospitals and assistance to the wounded during the First World War and worked as simple sisters of mercy.”
As we see, for Marugova, disbelief in the feat of the president’s daughter rhymes with distrust of the very real (albeit inaccurately retold) story about the grand duchesses who worked in the hospital during the First World War. According to her logic, if Nicholas II sent his daughters to help the front, then Putin could do the same. For Marugova, the mythology “the king sacrifices his daughters for the good of the people and for victory” is sufficient proof that the text about Vorontsova is true. She even illustrated her post about the authenticity of the newsletter photography daughters of Nicholas II in the uniform of nurses (but she still deleted the original post about Putin’s daughter).
Based on this, we can conclude that the story about the supposedly heroic participation of Putin’s daughter in hostilities is necessary for pro-war Russians. For them, this story is proof that the president of the country spares nothing for the front. Apparently, this is the main reason why the legend not only arose, but also spread so widely.
The theme of the viral text - a heroic woman rescuing the wounded under enemy fire - refers to stories popular among Z-bloggers about nurses who “carry the wounded from the battlefield in the Northern Military District zone.” For example, in the spring of 2023 many pro-war Telegram channels and the media told the story of Christina Kim, who “pulled 12 paratroopers from the battlefield” (according to “Komsomolskaya Pravda", this happened in the Kiev suburb of Gostomel, and in the presentation Life.ru - near Soledar in Donbass). Popular and publications about the deceased nurse Yana with the call sign Romashka, who “in three days carried 150 soldiers from the battlefield.”
***
The semantic space of war-time Telegram channels needs heroic narratives (and not only stories about the exploits of ordinary military personnel). Needs it so much that some popular resources may publish as an obituary, an obvious fake, in which the first letters in the lines of the young man’s supposedly last poems, deceased at the front, form the surname Putin and an obscene word. In this context, it is clear why the audience of such channels liked the legend in which the daughter of the head of state turns out to be a hero in the war, and he himself, according to the newsletter, worries about his child just like thousands of residents of the country.
*The author thanks Semyon Makarov for his assistance in translation from the Yakut language.
Cover photo: YouTube screenshot
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