Russian President Vladimir Putin will seemingly do anything to stay in power.
First elected president in 1999, Putin served two consecutive terms, leaving office in 2008,
only to return in 2012, where he has remained ever since.
"Surely, time has come to change this."
In 2020, Putin even changed the Russian constitution, possibly allowing him to hang on to the presidency
until at least 2036.
Putin claims he will step down at that point, but nobody knows for sure.
Could a man so intent on maintaining his rule over the Russian people have lied about his
own family history in order to do so?
The mystery of Vladimir Putin's real mother leads some to believe that is the case.
But first, some backstory: Putin served as prime minister while Boris Yeltsin was President
of Russia.
When Yeltsin retired, he appointed Putin to be his replacement.
Eventually, though, Putin would have to stand for a vote.
Putin was already controversial, due in no small part to the Second Chechen War, provoked
by his actions as president.
In the run-up to the vote, a Russian oil executive, opposed to Putin winning the presidency, flew
to Chechnya with a Russian journalist to see a video that, if released, could change the
election results.
Those men would never arrive, killed in a plane crash for which the Russian secret service
could be responsible, according to the German newspaper Zeit.
But what was on that tape that made Vladimir Putin so desperate to keep it suppressed?
According to "First Person: An Astonishingly Frank Self-Portrait by Russia's President
Vladimir Putin," he grew up in Leningrad.
Both of his parents survived World War II.
His father fought in the war, and his mother experienced the blockade of Leningrad, which
is now St. Petersburg.
This story puts Putin's family on the frontlines of one of Russia's biggest World War II victories.
Putin also claims in the book that his real parents died before he took office.
In the view of some, this supports Putin's carefully curated image as a true Russian
man of the people, intent on returning Mother Russia to its former glory.
Putin's origin story, as he tells it, frequently changes, and the true story might mean Vladimir
Putin is not Russian at all, but Georgian.
Because the video that two Russian oil executives died on their way to see had nothing more
on it than the footage of a Russian-Georgian woman named Vera Putina, who lives in the
former Soviet republic of Georgia, according to Zeit.
Putina, who was 73 at the time of the taping, tells the interviewers that she had a son
in 1950 — whom she nicknamed Vova — born out of wedlock.
According to Putina, Vova would never know the real name of his father.
That boy's real name was Vladimir Putin.
In that same video, Putina goes on to say that she eventually married a Georgian man
with whom her son Vova had a tense relationship.
This young Vladimir Putin loved judo, she said, which is consistent with what we know
for sure about the real Vladimir Putin, who is a black belt.
"He was always running around the village with the neighbor boys.
I didn't want that."
As relations deteriorated between her son and his stepfather, though, Putina was forced
to send Vova to live with her parents.
They were ill, and eventually, young Vladimir was sent to live with foster parents in Leningrad,
according to Zeit.
Putina's testimony is not the only evidence supporting this version of history.
The maker of the video also speaks to other villagers who remember young Vova, and journalists
from the U.K.'s Daily Telegraph even found proof that a student named Vladimir Putin
attended a nearby school around that same time.
The story was published in some Georgian newspapers.
It eventually gained traction in Turkey, and the Putina footage was broadcast on Turkish
TV.
Amid talks of a natural gas pipeline set to be built by the Russians in Turkey, that broadcast
never took place.
Still, word about Putin's real childhood was out.
According to "First Person," Putin claims to know more about his father's background
than that of his mother.
Consistent with Putina's version of events, Putin's own recollection becomes much clearer
when he starts school in Leningrad around 1960.
That's around the same time Putina says her son was sent to live with foster parents,
who really did die prior to Putin obtaining the presidency.
A further inconsistency with Putin's version of events as told in the book is the fact
that his purported real mother would have been 41 when he was born, which was very unusual
in that area at that time.
Disputed childhood photographs of Putin also cast doubt on the story.
Nevertheless, uncertainty remains about the true origin of Vladimir Putin, and even though
Putina submitted samples for a blood test, the results were never released, and more
unexplained deaths have occurred around the story.
As the words of Putina from that very first video footage attest, she is convinced that
her son is Russian President Vladimir Putin.
According to Zeit, Putina says,
"Vova still carries my last name, but he doesn't want to recognize me as his mother.
That's the reason people from the KGB came here to my house.
They took along all the family photos and admonished me that I was not allowed to tell
anyone about him."
Check out one of our newest videos right here!
Plus, even more Grunge videos about the latest hot topics are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.