MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin was seen with his wife, Lyudmila, Thursday night for the first time in a year, at a production of the ballet “La Esmeralda,” and took advantage of the occasion to tell his nation that they are getting divorced.

During the first intermission, at the Kremlin State Palace, the couple was interviewed by the Russia 24 news channel. They exchanged a few pleasantries about the ballet, and then the reporter mentioned that they are rarely seen together.

“There are so many rumors that you’re divorced,” the reporter said. “Is this correct?”


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“This is correct,” Putin said. Looking at Lyudmila, who was wearing a black outfit with white accents, he said, “All my work is related to publicity. But there are people who are absolutely incompatible with this, for instance, Lyudmila Alexandrovna” — using a formal style of address that includes her patronymic. It’s a way of talking that long-married couples occasionally resort to — sometimes with fondness. It would be like President Obama referring to his wife as “Mrs. Obama.”

“We hardly see each other, and we each have our own lives,” Lyudmila Putin said. “I don’t like publicity, and flying wears me down. We will remain very close people forever, and I am grateful to Vladimir Vladimirovich” — again, the polite form of address — “that he still supports me.”

Both said the divorce was a joint decision. They called their divorce civilized but didn’t say whether it had been legally formalized.

The last time they were seen in public together was in May 2012, at his inauguration, when he was shown accepting her congratulations as if they had been apart for a long time. Lyudmila Putin has been reported to be living in Sardinia, among other places, and to be spending time in Paris.

“She was a woman who loved and was not loved,” Nataliya Gevorkyan, who wrote a biography of Putin in 2000, said in a recent interview in Paris.

Lyudmila Putin was an Aeroflot flight attendant from Kaliningrad when the couple met. Vladimir Putin was a young KGB agent. He had already left one fiancée at the altar — also named Lyudmila. They married in 1983.

She followed him to Dresden, in East Germany at the time, then back to St. Petersburg and on to Moscow when he took a job in the Kremlin. Along the way, they had two daughters, now grown.

As president, Putin has made a fetish of appearing to work inhuman hours, often interspersed with bouts of intense physical activity.

The Putins had entered the theater Thursday to brief and uncomfortable applause, with some in the audience standing awkwardly as if startled by their appearance. Their being together rated a news item by the RIA Novosti news agency. After the interview, conducted while they stood side by side in a room off the auditorium, the Putins left the theater. They missed the last two acts of the melodramatic ballet based on “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” the Victor Hugo novel.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/06/07/world/europe/putins-finally-appear-together-to-announce-split.html

For a man whose approx net worth hovers around $70 billion, she should be looking towards a handsome settlement. Means more cruising in the yatch and vacations in the Cayman Islands. Live b4 u die.

The Putins married on July 28, 1983, and have two daughters, Maria and Yekaterina, whose lives get little public view.

There have been hints that Lyudmila Putin was unhappy. In a 2005 interview with three Russian newspapers, she complained that her husband worked long hours, forgetting that "one needs not only to work, but also to live."

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/06/06/russian-president-putin-wife-announce-divorce/

The rich also cry!

I hope Putin didn't discover that he was married to a CIA agent !

Take it or leave it, whatever success that makes you lose your marriage doesn't worth it.

Na wa o! Some pple get head and no cap 2 put on and vice versa. I'm speechless!

Good for them.
They didn't look like a couple when i saw them on tv last night.

The strong man of the east, the ultimate alpha male despite being pint sized. This only goes to show that size doesn't matter, what counts is who and what you are.

The wife has to know not to ask for ridiculous settlement, it's suicidal to go against putin

hmmmm na wa oooo

dey say luv neva dies bt wat happens wen it dies...heartbreak,neglet,hate den breakup or divorce

50calibre: The strong man of the east, the ultimate alpha male despite being pint sized. This only goes to show that size doesn't matter, what counts is who and what you are.

How about Napoleaon ? He was a loving soldier.

~Bluetooth:


How about Napoleaon ? He was a loving soldier.

Same goes for napoleon

sorry o

Am so sure there is a model/actress at d corner for vladimir

OK

50calibre:

Same goes for napoleon

Yeah

Never under-estimate the power of a woman.I wonder how the wives of Stalin,Hitler and Mussolini had coped with their husbands.

Strong man with strong head

~Bluetooth:


Yeah

Never under-estimate the power of a woman.I wonder how the wives of Stalin,Hitler and Mussolini had coped with their husbands.

Haha! I don't know about the wives of both Stalin and Mussolini, but I know that hitler's wife/girlfriend was completely obsessed with him, she saw him as a god and also committed suicide with him.

Well you can't blame putin's wife, the guy has many things on his hands, like Syria, Russian economy, oil, home opposition, NATO, regional struggles etc that he doesn't pay her attention

The woman talk say her husband dey too busy for her
.NET

PDP caused it

I also tink she shuld get half of d country.

No big deal!

Putin already has a replacement waiting in the corner

Vladimir Putin

it shud have been

Vladimov Putinsky

He should watch out from burn-out.
He is just a man.

You can see the gold digging on the woman's face. Question now is, what went wrong?

jonathan!! ......heard has been chykn the woman shaa to use her for the next election

booqee: This is the first case in history

Nope! Nicholas Sarkozy divorced his wife while he was still president . I just hope this lady would live to tell the story because Putin, being notoriously wicked, may chose to silence her permanently

Abbott: He should watch out from burn-out.
He is just a man.

HE IS NOT JUST A MAN. HE IS MORE THAN A MAN 1 CORINTHIANS 15 VS 39 All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. >>> INTERPRETATION

MEN = QUICKENED SPIRITS AKA MEN WALKING IN THE LIGHT OF GOD
BEASTS = ATHEISTS AND MEN FOLLOWING OTHER gODS
FISHES = WORLD POPULATION
BIRDS = WORLD LEADERS LIKE PUTIN AND OBAMA AND GOODLUCK ETC