Putin's Daughter: A Battlefield Hero or a Myth?

Maria Vorontsova, endocrinologist and Russian President Vladimir Putin's daughter, is rumored to have been wounded while medically assisting soldiers in Russia's war in Ukraine. Independent outlet Verstka recently revealed how this "heroic" story, reproduced in pro-Kremlin social media, may be a myth.

In early February, the search terms "Maria Vorontsova" and "Putin's daughter" rose 10-fold on the Google search engine. The story that was shared on social media said that the medic had "visited a zone of the [war] with ordinary Russian soldiers." There, she allegedly set up a mobile hospital that is said to have served over 10,000 wounded soldiers. The location of the hospital was never disclosed.

While Putin's daughter was supposedly unloading injured men off a medical train, a nearby landmine exploded. She suffered a concussion, but continued helping the wounded. Putin's daughter later received medical attention and was rehabilitated.

"Our President raised his daughter with dignity," said the viral post. The story kept being tweaked as it was published across social media. But by February, many websites had deleted the post from their platforms.

Verstka took a deeper dive, looking for ways the story doesn't line up with reality. First, the Russian army doesn't use medical trains. In April 2023, Russian state news outlet Izvestia said that Russia would start using this mode of transportation in its invasion, but there is no evidence that this initiative ever started.

Verstka also mentioned how the Russian armed forces mount mobile hospitals on KamAz trucks near the front line. No video footage of these vehicles in the battlefield has appeared since December 2024. Therefore, it's likely that no mobile hospital would be able to handle 10,000 wounded men in just a few months.

Verstka also said that medics in the battlefield tend to be surgeons, disaster medicine specialists, and anesthesiologists. Vorontsova is an internal medicine specialist; endocrinology is not on demand at the front.

The publication Provereno traced the first publication of the story back to Spiridon Borbuyev, a United Russia politician in the Sakha Republic. Provereno noted that the original post was made in Yakut on January 31. The first version in Russian has numerous translation errors, including in the number of patients in the alleged hospital.

The Russian president is notorious for keeping information about his children out of the public eye. Putin himself never commented on his daughter’s alleged heroism.