By Murad Rakhimov | 2025-10-06

While Russian soldiers die young on the battlefield, the Kremlin is pouring millions into helping its leaders live longer, sometimes with grants that go straight to President Vladimir Putin's daughter.

Novaya Gazeta Europe reported in September that the Russian Science Foundation (RSF) approved 43 aging-related projects in the past four years, including 34 between 2021 and 2023. Just seven were funded from 2016 to 2020.

Grant sizes have also grown, from 3-6 million RUB ($34,900–$69,800) in 2017 to 4-7 million ($60,900-$106,500) in 2025. Total funding for aging projects has jumped eightfold, from 21 million RUB ($244,000) in 2016–2020 to 172 million in 2021–2025 (about $2 million).

The foundation's board is chaired by 76-year-old Andrei Fursenko, a longtime Putin ally who directs decisions on funding and grants.

This year, the RSF backed five aging projects, among them one led by Maria Vorontsova, President Putin's eldest daughter. She is set to receive 30 million RUB ($359,000), far above the foundation's usual awards, for research on cell renewal, organ function and human longevity.

Science for the few

At a September 3 military parade in Beijing, President Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, both 72, were caught on a hot mic discussing human longevity.

Xi told Putin that "earlier, people rarely lived to 70, but these days at 70 years you are still a child." Putin replied: "With the development of biotechnology, human organs can be continuously transplanted, and people can live younger and younger and even achieve immortality."

Russia's RBC news agency later released a fuller version of Putin's remarks, in which he said modern medicine and surgical advances "allow humanity to hope that active life will not continue like today, but rather that life expectancy will increase significantly."

Xi added that forecasts suggest people may live to 150 this century.

Reuters initially posted a video of the parade exchange but later removed it after China's state broadcaster, CCTV, revoked its footage license.

Days late, on September 9, President Putin visited the laboratory complex of Sirius University in the Krasnodar Territory. Since 2022, the university has carried out research in chemistry, genetics, biology, the mechanisms of aging and even the creation of new agricultural crops.

RIA Novosti reported that in one lab President Putin was shown "rejuvenating strawberries," a variety promoted for its supposed health benefits. The term comes from Russian folklore, referring to something that restores youth.

In 2022, investigative outlet Proekt reported that President Putin takes baths infused with blood from the un-ossified antlers of young deer. The procedure is said to improve cardiovascular function and rejuvenate the skin, though it lacks scientific backing.

According to Proekt, members of Russia's elite soon adopted the practice, turning antler extracts and other longevity fads into a status symbol among top officials.

Aging leadership

Much of Russia's leadership is older than the country's average male life expectancy of 68. President Putin turns 73 in October. Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko is 76, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is 75, Constitutional Court Chairman Valery Zorkin is 82, and Foreign Intelligence Service chief Sergey Naryshkin is 71.

In early 2024, President Putin launched a national project called "New Health-Preserving Technologies," focused on anti-aging research, biotechnology and even 3D-printed human organs.

When introducing the national project at the Russia exhibition in May that year, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said the state would support the development of technologies that prevent cellular aging, neurotechnologies, and other research that enables longevity and healthy aging.

By June, the Health Ministry had ordered research institutes to "urgently provide anti-aging innovations."

Independent outlets say the initiative came from Putin ally Mikhail Kovalchuk, a promoter of the "Russian genome" concept and longevity research. He also oversees the federal genetics program that includes Putin's daughter Vorontsova, an endocrinologist.

Longevity as power politics

Alisher Ilkhamov, director of Central Asia Due Diligence in London, told Kontur that President Putin's longevity push stands in stark contrast to Russia's war in Ukraine, where tens of thousands of soldiers die each year.

"Putin has no regard for Russians' lives, sending them in droves to certain death, yet cares only for his own health and longevity -- at state expense and through 'donations' from proteges. Orwell himself could not have imagined it better," Ilkhamov said.

He called the multimillion-ruble grant to Putin's daughter one example of the conflicts of interest that permeate Russian public life.

Dmitry Dubrovsky, a faculty member at Charles University in Prague, said family ties in longevity research amount to a bid to please the president.

"This is happening to the rallying cry, 'let's urgently save Putin, because if there is no Putin, there will be no Russia,'" he told Kontur.

Dubrovsky described Vorontsova's award as a clear conflict of interest, noting that grants in Russia are awarded through a corrupt, opaque process.

"Grants are not given to the best candidates, but rather 'to those who they need to be given to.' … This has to do with Putin's plaything," he said.

Independent journalist Sabohat Rakhmonova said President Putin is reshaping longevity programs to serve his family's interests.

"We are seeing a classic example of the clan approach. His daughter receiving multimillion-dollar grants isn't about science -- it's about access to the budget trough," Rakhmonova told Kontur.

She compared the practice to authoritarian Asian regimes "where corruption and family ties are more important than being a professional." Such actions erode public trust in state institutions and turn strategic research into a tool for elite enrichment, Rakhmonova noted.