‘I live in my own bubble’ Meeting on the app Clubhouse, one of Putin’s alleged daughters chats with the investigative reporter who exposed her ties to the Russian president

Elon Musk may have failed to get Vladimir Putin into a chat room on Clubhouse, but one of the Russian president’s alleged daughters has joined the new social network. Late on Tuesday, Louiza Rozova spoke briefly to Andrey Zakharov, one of the journalists who recently outed her as Putin’s supposedly illegitimate daughter. In November 2020, Zakharov and others at Proekt released an investigative report revealing that a minority stake in the enormous Rossiya Bank belongs to a woman named Svetlana Krivonogikh, apparently received thanks to her intimate association with Russia’s president. Proekt also reported that Krivonogikh has a daughter named Louiza Rozova who “looks remarkably” like Putin. Based on a transcript reported by The Village, Meduza summarizes Rozova’s Clubhouse broadcast on Tuesday night.

Before Louiza Rozova’s Clubhouse companions invited Andrey Zakharov into their chat room, she was asked about Putin’s infamous response to Alexey Navalny’s attempted assassination (the president told journalists last December that “they’d have killed him if they wanted to kill him”). Rozova has apparently pondered the moral implications of Navalny’s poisoning (in addition to the origins of the pandemic):

When Zakharov joined the chat room, he introduced himself as the journalist who reported Rozova’s relationship to Putin and then immediately asked her (addressing her as “Liza”) if she is, in fact, the president’s daughter. A friend in the Clubhouse room defended Rozova, saying, “As a journalist, you should realize that she’ll never tell you anything.” Rozova then corrected Zakharov, saying, “My name is Louiza, not Liza.”

After some more back-and-forth, Zakharov told Rozova that he admired the apparent hopefulness of her youth, comparing the promise and optimism of her St. Petersburg education and online activity to the “darkness” and censorship that consumes television and Russia’s old media. “The chance to follow Putin’s daughter, who chats with subscribers, means there’s hope in this country,” said Zakharov, urging Rozova not to “disappoint” people:

Zakharov then asked Rozova how she’s handled the repercussions of being identified as one of Vladimir Putin’s children. She thanked him for spicing up her life:

Before Zakharov was booted from the Clubhouse room, he managed to ask Rozova what she thinks about modern Russia. She apparently saw the question as a criticism of her sheltered life and responded accordingly: