Germany’s top tabloid retracts article about Putin’s ‘secret’ daughter over suspicions of fake quotes and photos
In early August, the German tabloid Bild published an article about Vladimir Putin’s alleged daughter, Elizaveta Krivonogikh, also known as Luiza Rozova. The piece compiled what it described as Rozova’s “most important statements” from her “private Telegram channel,” where she allegedly “talks openly for the first time about her family and life in French exile,” posts selfies, and makes critical remarks about Putin himself. English-language newspapers such as Newsweek and The New York Post quickly picked up the story. But after other journalists raised doubts about whether the Telegram channel really belonged to Rozova, Bild retracted the article and announced an internal review. Here’s what we know about the story and why Bild took it down.
The first report about Putin’s “secret daughter” was published by the investigative outlet Proekt in 2020. The investigation claimed that Svetlana Krivonogikh, a St. Petersburg resident, had become a minority shareholder in Russia’s Rossiya Bank thanks to her close ties to Putin. Proekt also noted that Svetlana’s daughter Elizaveta, then 17, bore “a striking resemblance to the Russian president.”
At age 14, she changed her last name to Rozova and began using the name Luiza on social media.
The Kremlin dismissed Proekt’s investigation as “provocative yellow journalism.” But after its publication, Rozova deleted all Instagram photos showing her face. In February 2022, she took down her account entirely.
Rozova (or someone claiming to be her) has since given several interviews in which she neither confirmed nor denied her relationship to Putin, and always kept her face covered.
According to media reports, Rozova also holds a passport under the name Elizaveta Olegovna Rudnova, and attended the ICART International School in Paris under that name.
The pseudonym “Rudnova” is reportedly derived from businessman Oleg Rudnov, who died in 2015. Rudnov was known as a friend of Putin’s who carried out “sensitive assignments” on his behalf. According to Proekt, Rudnov purchased a 200-square-meter apartment in St. Petersburg in 2006, which later passed to Svetlana Krivonogikh.
In June 2025, Rozova was reported to be working at the Paris gallery L Galerie and its affiliated art space Studio Albatros, which has hosted several anti-war exhibitions by Russian and Ukrainian artists.
Bild’s article claimed Rozova left Russia in February 2022. However, journalist Andrey Zakharov, citing leaked border-crossing records, has said she “periodically travels back and forth using a cover passport under the name Elizaveta Rudnova.” The Insider, citing flight data, reported that she “now spends a significant amount of time in Russia.”
‘It feels so good to show my face’
Bild published the article featuring statements attributed to Vladimir Putin’s “secret” daughter on August 3. Days later, the tabloid retracted the piece and released the following statement:
On Sunday, the newspaper Bild published an article about statements by Luiza Rozova (22), the alleged daughter of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. It reported that she spoke extensively about Putin and her life in exile.
Now, various online channels have raised suspicions that these statements were posted on a fake account that closely mimics Rozova’s real page.
Bild is carefully investigating these claims and, as a precaution, retracting the article about Luiza Rozova.
The article’s basic content can be gleaned from a summary posted on Bild’s Russian-language Telegram channel, which hasn’t been deleted as of this writing. The post says Rozova has begun “openly talking for the first time about her family and her life in French exile,” sharing photos of herself, and making critical remarks about Putin on social media.
It also includes a quote attributed to her: “It feels so good to show my face to the world again. Every day, it reminds me who I was born as and who destroyed my life. The person who took millions of lives and ruined mine.”
The post doesn’t say where Bild obtained these quotes or the accompanying photo, though they presumably came from Rozova’s purported “private Telegram channel.” It also mentions her Instagram, where she “condemns the war in Ukraine and criticizes the brand obsession common among elite children: ‘A linen shirt without a logo can convey more truth than a silk designer dress.’” No links are provided to the original article or to the social media profiles attributed to her.
A common mistake
Immediately after the article appeared, journalists began questioning the authenticity of Rozova’s alleged statements. Andrey Zakharov — one of the Proekt reporters who first named Krivonogikh as Putin’s daughter — suggested the quotes came from a video by PR agent Rostislav Murzagulov.
The video in question was released on August 3, the same day Bild’s piece came out. In it, Murzagulov said he was in contact with the person managing the Instagram account @luizaroz__. “This account is often mistaken for Rozova’s official page (it even had a post saying ‘No to war’), but I have said many times that, in my opinion, it’s fake,” Zakharov explained.
Later, Zakharov clarified that he sees Murzagulov’s video and the Bild article as separate. However, he believes both Murzagulov and Bild’s journalists were in contact with the same person who runs the fake Instagram account. It’s presumably this person who gave Bild access to a private Telegram channel containing the statements and photos attributed to Rozova.
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“I’ll say this cautiously: I know only one account followed by Luiza’s friends, and it’s not the one many people think is her Instagram,” Zakharov said.
If the Bild journalist was communicating with Luiza there, then he really was talking to Putin’s daughter. I still consider the public, well-known account fake, but an important note: the photos that appeared there in late July are indeed pictures of Luiza. At least, Amazon’s facial recognition service shows over 99 percent similarity. Still, getting current photos of Luiza — if you want to — isn’t difficult.
He added that he will only believe the statements quoted by Bild are genuine if he sees a video interview with Rozova.
‘This account is fake’
Journalists from the Telegram channel All Exclusive found that the photos used in Bild’s article were actually altered images of a 22-year-old St. Petersburg model named Darya Aaron. The originals (posted here and here) appeared in Aaron’s personal Telegram channel, which has about 2,000 subscribers, in September 2023 and February 2025. One of them, according to Aaron’s caption, was taken at the restaurant Reborn in St. Petersburg.
All Exclusive concluded that Aaron’s photos were cropped and edited for what appear to be fake accounts posing as Putin’s daughter’s. For example, they noted that the images of “Rozova” from Bild’s Russian-language Telegram channel were low quality and slightly out of focus. “The girl’s skin is heavily blurred, bright spots are smoothed out, the eyebrows and eyelashes lack detail. In the restaurant photo, the girl’s lower lip appears ‘shifted,’ unnaturally covering the edge of her hand. All this clearly points to photo editing,” The Insider wrote, paraphrasing the journalists’ findings.
Aaron declined to comment to All Exclusive. German broadcaster RTL also reported the photos in Bild’s article were fake, saying some “belonged to a former acquaintance of Luiza Rozova” — a Russian model whose name wasn’t disclosed. She confirmed that some of her photos had been stolen and altered.
RTL noted that portraits of “Rozova” created from another woman’s images had been posted months earlier on the Instagram account @luizaroz__, which is also believed to be fake. Those images are no longer there.
On August 6, a photo collage appeared on the account combining Aaron’s restaurant photo with Putin’s face. The caption read: “Hi. I want everyone to know that this account is fake. I have never spoken out against war, I adore Russia and its government. There have never been any telegram channels associated with me, and the person behind the account and the posts is shown in the photo. STOP WRITING TO ME! I WILL NOT GIVE ANY COMMENTS!”
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On August 7, Bild’s editorial team issued another statement, saying there were serious doubts not only about the authenticity of the account they had cited but also about the photos they’d published.
“At the moment, there are several theories: either this is a fake account that Luiza Rozova has nothing to do with, or it’s an account managed by Rozova’s acquaintances and used as a PR tool. Also, it cannot yet be ruled out with absolute certainty that this account is directly linked to Rozova,” Bild stated.
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