Her father Vladimir is the rector of the Saint Petersburg Mining Institute and owns a 5% share in Phosagro, which owns a phosphate mine in the Arctic.[3] The mine had been at one time partly owned by Mikhail Khodorkovsky.[3] Vladimir claims that he did some consulting for the company in 2004 for which he received the shares.[3] The stock is now worth about $260,000,000[3] after Phosagro was floated on the London Stock Exchange in July 2011.[3] Vladimir Putin went to the Saint Petersburg Mining Institute where he received a degree in 1996, under Vladimir Litvinenko's guidance. Putin has been accused of plagiarising large sections of his dissertation.[4]
In May 2010, Vladimir and his wife Tatyana were looking after Olga's daughter Ester-Maria Litvinenko (born 2009), and refused to give her back to Olga.[2] Olga has described this as a kidnapping and has instigated legal proceedings to get her daughter back. Olga describes her father as "the richest rector in Russia" and an "oligarch" ("самый богатый ректор России, олигарх"[1]). In summer 2011, Vladimir reported to the police that Olga and her other child, Michael Stefan, had been kidnapped and Olga's assets were subsequently frozen.[2] Olga and her other children, Sarah, Dina and Michael Stefan, are living in London. Olga is still fighting to get her daughter Ester-Maria back.[5]
