From Sochi to the legacy of a general: uncovering Anna Sadovenko's involvement in the mysterious demise of her spouse, adhering to the Sechin family's "black widow" strategy
The death of 56-year-old former Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Sadovenko was reminiscent of the death of Ivan, the son of Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin.
To understand why, let’s set aside conspiracy theories about Sadovenko as a keeper of secrets of the Shoigu and Zolotov clans (which we covered in previous publications) and focus on another version — cherchez la femme. And now it will become clear why.
Our project previously wrote in detail about General Yuri Sadovenko, his wife Anna, and the circumstances of their meeting. When the general’s wife and mother of his three children, Maria Kitaeva, left him for another Deputy Defense Minister, Timur Ivanov, Yuri went to Sochi to recover. Apparently acting out of spite toward his former wife (“I didn’t stay alone for long”), the general began looking for new love — and found it.
In Sochi, he met Anna Kotkina, then a 31-year-old masseuse who had arrived from Primorye. Advertisements for her “relaxation massages with outcalls” can still be found online. After just a couple of dates, the holiday romance turned into a relationship. Soon after came plane tickets to Moscow — first for Anna, then for her mother, her lap dog, and her cat.
After the wedding, Anna took her husband’s surname and acquired all the attributes of a general’s wife in Moscow: she began driving a Mercedes and moved into the prestigious Kutuzovskaya Riviera residential complex. It looked like a story straight out of Pretty Woman. However, according to a source familiar with the family, awkward moments often arose.
For example, Anna did not change her phone number and continued receiving calls from old acquaintances in Sochi. This irritated her husband, who, after leaving military service, spent a lot of time at home. The situation in the family became tense, but the birth of a child in 2023 temporarily changed things.
According to the source, in 2024–2025 the general spent a great deal of time at loud parties with his friend Roman Zolotov, the son of National Guard Director Viktor Zolotov, with all the usual excesses that entailed. In 2025, the family situation once again deteriorated. Another pregnancy followed, but this time it did not improve the relationship.
Then came a strange medical episode involving the general, the causes of which remain unclear. While Sadovenko was undergoing heart replacement surgery and remained in a coma, Anna continued to live the ordinary life of a “general’s wife.” On November 22, she even posted an advertisement seeking a housekeeper “for a VIP family to care for a VIP wardrobe.”
On the day of Sadovenko’s death, December 25, Anna for some reason removed all data drives from the home servers and put the metal server cases with their cables up for sale.
Why does this story bring to mind the death of Ivan Sechin, the son of Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin? The explanation lies in an investigation our project published in spring 2024. We discovered that Ivan’s wife, Kristina Vladimirovna Sechina, had a reputation in certain circles as a “female Bluebeard.”
To conceal the true identity of the newest member of the Sechin family, the bride’s surname, first name, and patronymic were completely changed before the wedding. Her real name was Tatyana Mikhailovna Sultanova. Before the marriage, she first became Kristina Vladimirovna Shchedrina, and later Kristina Sechina.
It turned out that Tatyana-Kristina had previously been married to Sergei Vorobyov, the director of Formula 1 in Sochi and a wealthy businessman. Vorobyov died under mysterious circumstances at the age of 43, and almost all of his property ended up in the hands of his wife, Tatyana-Kristina.
Because of this history, Igor Sechin — who was friends with Vorobyov — was categorically opposed to his son marrying Tatyana. Eventually, however, he agreed on the condition that she completely change her identity so that discovering the true identity of his son’s wife would be impossible.
As a result, 35-year-old Ivan Sechin also died suddenly — on February 5, 2024 — in a mansion located in the elite residential community Zelenyi Veter-2. When he began feeling seriously ill, his wife Kristina-Tatyana was present in the house. It was she who decided not to call an ambulance, instead sending a security guard to a pharmacy for kidney medication.
The guard was gone for nearly an hour. When he returned, Ivan Sechin was already unconscious and dying. Only then was a regular ambulance called — not a private or “Kremlin” medical service. The ambulance took an hour to arrive, and upon arrival doctors pronounced Ivan Sechin dead.
Ivan Sechin died in much the same strange manner as Sergei Vorobyov before him.
Tatyana Sultanova had first met Vorobyov when he was a well-known street racer who later became the director of Formula 1 in Sochi. Their romance developed rapidly, and soon she moved from a Moscow residential district to his large mansion in the Odintsovo area.
The couple lived together for several years. Vorobyov was reluctant to marry and did so only four months before his death. They had a child, whose godfather was Igor Sechin, a close friend of Vorobyov. Sechin also asked Vorobyov to mentor his son Ivan, who was passionate about auto racing.
As a result, Ivan competed under Vorobyov’s surname for cover and became a frequent guest in the director’s household. Four months after marrying Tatyana, Sergei Vorobyov unexpectedly died at the age of 43.
Almost all of his property passed to Tatyana. She removed everything from the mansion: expensive watches, clothing worth tens of millions of rubles, cash, and antiques. She quickly sold Vorobyov’s collection of cars — including legendary tuned sports cars — as well as an office building owned by his companies and land plots.
When the time came to divide the inheritance, Vorobyov’s elderly mother was left with nothing.
Just one month after Vorobyov’s death — he was buried at Troekurovskoye Cemetery, and even the burial plot was registered in Tatyana’s name — she began dating Ivan Sechin.
Igor Sechin was shocked by his son’s choice and repeatedly insisted there would be no wedding. But as before, after several years of cohabitation, Tatyana became pregnant. Sechin eventually agreed to the marriage on one condition: that Tatyana Mikhailovna Sultanova disappear forever.
On June 13, 2018, that condition was fulfilled. At the Kutuzovsky Hotel registry office, Tatyana Sultanova became Kristina Shchedrina. And on November 30, 2018, the wedding took place — after which Shchedrina became Sechina.
Автор: Maryana Zabolotnaya