{{President Vladimir Putin and his wife, Lyudmila, told Russians on Thursday that their 30-year marriage was over, confirming longstanding speculation that they had separated.}}<\/p>\n
In a rare appearance together on state television, Putin was asked about rumors that they no longer lived together and answered: “That is true.”<\/p>\n
The announcement removes a big question mark about the private life of a president who has increasingly touted traditional values and championed the conservative Russian Orthodox Church as a moral authority.<\/p>\n
Politically, Putin may have calculated that it was better to be seen coming clean about a separation many Russians have long taken as fact than to be suspected of hiding the truth or living a secret second life.<\/p>\n
The couple looked nervous as they stood side by side in the Kremlin, speaking to a lone reporter. They referred to each other formally by first name and patronymic, adding a respectful but uncomfortable touch.<\/p>\n
Putin smiled woodenly and nodded as Lyudmila spoke, though they both appeared more relaxed after making the announcement.<\/p>\n
Lyudmila, a former airline stewardess five years younger than the 60-year-old president, said it had been “our common decision”.<\/p>\n
“Our marriage is over due to the fact that we barely see each other,” she said. Putin also said it had been “a joint decision”.<\/p>\n
The Putins married in 1983 and have two daughters, both in their 20s. The announcement came 13 months into a third presidential term for Putin, who came to power in 2000 and has not ruled out seeking re-election in 2018.<\/p>\n
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{{President Vladimir Putin and his wife, Lyudmila, told Russians on Thursday that their 30-year marriage was over, confirming longstanding speculation that they had separated.}} In a rare appearance together on state television, Putin was asked about rumors that they no longer lived together and answered: “That is true.” The announcement removes a big question mark […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[101],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-8303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-internationl","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8303\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8303"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=8303"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=8303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}