Dutch Mayor Demands Deportation Of Maria Putin, Then Apologizes

Maria Putin, Vladimir Putin’s daughter, is living in Voorschoten, Netherlands, sparking outrage and even calls from a nearby mayor to expel the young woman.

Nearly half of the passengers in the recently shot down Malaysian airlines 17 were Dutch. Citizens of the Netherlands are now in a period of mourning, and some are saying things they later regret. Particularly Pieter Broertjes.

Pieter Broertjes is the mayor of Hilversum, a town close to where Maria Putin, 29, is living with her boyfriend. In a radio show interview, he urged the government to deport Ms. Putin.

The interview was on a day when planes carrying 50 bodies, victims of the Malaysian airlines crash, were being transported to an army barracks in Hilversum.

The mayor later went on Twitter to apologize for the comments. Saying that his comments were not wise and came from his feelings of helplessness, a feeling that many Dutch could empathize with at this time.

For the most part, Maria Putin has lived life out of the spotlight. There has never even been an official photograph of her or her sister Yekaterina as adults. When an unauthorized picture started to appear on Facebook, Vladimir Putin was reportedly enraged. It is believed that Maria’s been living with her boyfriend in Holland for the past two years.

But Maria’s days out of the mainstream might be coming to an end. According to De Telegraaf newspaper, Ukrainians living in the Netherlands have called for a peaceful protest outside her apartment complex. The newspaper went so far as to print a picture of the building in Voorschoten.

In addition, the Guardian has said that “persistent rumors” link Ms. Putin to Jorrit Faassen, who held senior positions in two Russian mega-companies, Gazprom and Stroytransgaz.

If those Guardian rumors are even remotely true; Maria might come under more public scrutiny.

The company Stroytransgaz, a pipeline manufacturing firm, was recently sanctioned by the U.S. government because of its involvement in the Crimean annexation. And Gazprom, which holds a monopoly on Russian gas exports and is owned by the state, allegedly uses a divide and conquer strategy against individual EU countries.

If Russia were to ever cut off the EU from natural gas exports, it would be through Gazprom.

There have been no comments from Vladimir Putin, nor from the aloof Maria Putin.

But it looks as if Maria’s relaxing life in the Dutch countryside might be coming to an end.

(Image Credit: World Economic Forum/Flickr)