Russian leader Vladimir Putin says the “little ones” in his family can converse in Chinese and can do so fluently.
Putin was speaking to students at a secondary school in Kyzyl, Tuva, on Monday when he talked about his family’s familiarity with the language.
“By the way, there is growing interest in Russian language interest in China and vice-versa,” Putin said, per a translation by The Telegraph.
“Members of my family, the little ones, speak Chinese fluently.”
The Russian leader is known to be secretive about his family and personal life.
Putin shares two daughters, Maria Vorontsova and Katerina Tithonova, with his ex-wife, Lyudmila Shkrebneva. The couple announced their divorce in 2013.
In 2017, Putin told filmmaker Oliver Stone during an interview that he was a grandfather, though it remains unclear how many grandchildren he has.
Putin’s remarks on Monday shouldn’t be surprising, considering Russia’s close relationship with China. The Asian giant has remained a close economic ally to Russia amid its bruising war with Ukraine.
In February 2022, just before Russia invaded Ukraine, Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Putin declared a “no limits” partnership after they’d met at the sidelines of the Beijing Winter Games that year.
That said, Putin was quick to remind his audience that they shouldn’t solely focus on the Chinese language.
“But it does not mean at all that we should forget our interest towards the English language. English is a great language, it has given humanity a great deal in terms of combining knowledge and uniting people in the field of culture, and so on,” Putin said on Monday.
“We do not reject anything, we do not have enemy languages, we do not even have enemy countries. We have hostile elites in some countries that have been fighting Russia for centuries.”
Representatives for Russia’s foreign ministry didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.
