President of Russia Vladimir Putin has a very mysterious and interesting love life, so much so that we don’t know a whole lot about it.
Russian journalists have had their careers jeopardised for trying to report on his relationship history.
This has left his children and those he is romantically involved with somewhat under the radar, given the taboo nature of them in Russian media.
What we know for sure is that he married an air hostess named Lyudmila Putina in 1983.
On Putin’s former presidential website, he said: “I became friends with Lyuda, my future wife.
“I understood that if I didn't marry for another two or three years, I would never marry. Though, of course, I had made a habit of leading a bachelor's life. Lyudmila uprooted it.”
The couple shares two children together and welcomed them in the mid-1980s. His eldest daughter is a geneticist, while the youngest is a mathematician.
However, according to the Washington Post, Putin has never “publicly identified his children other than to say he has two daughters”.
30 years after they married, the Putins announced their separation in 2013. In another article, the Washington Post said: “It is unclear when, precisely, their marriage began to fray, but every account suggests it emerged from their diverging personalities.”
Putina became weary and uncomfortable with Putin’s rise to power and the attention it drew.
At the time of the split, it was reported that Putina said: “Our marriage is over due to the fact that we barely see each other.
“Vladimir is completely submerged in his work. Our children have grown up, each of them is living her own life. I truly don’t like publicity.”
Proekt, the independent investigative media in Russia, published a claim that Putin had an affair with a woman named Svetlana Krivonogikh in 1999, while he was still married to Putina.
They also claimed that he is the father of her daughter, Luiza Rozova, and British magazine The Spectator wrote that on Rozova’s Instagram, she never shows her face because she “bears a striking resemblance to Vladimir Putin”.
The Russian state media watchdog blocked Proekt’s website after these claims went live.
Putin is now rumoured to be in a relationship with Alina Kabaeva, a former Olympic rhythmic gymnast and Russian MP, according to The Week.
He has denied this affair since it was first reported back in 2008, when the Moskovsky Korrespondent was forced to close down after they published it.
Putin dismissed claims that he and Kabaeva had married as “an internet exercise to relieve boredom” in 2013.
By 2014, the pair were seen wearing wedding rings at the Sochi Winter Olympics.
Forbes reported that Kabaeva is “widely assumed to be the mother of a further Putin brood, numbering possibly four, or two, depending upon which set of rumours one chooses to believe".
That's really all that is known or understood about Putin's love life, with plenty of uncertainty about who he may spend his downtime with.
