Putin Organized Multimillion-Greenback Dowry for Ex-Spouse: Report

Russian President Vladimir Putin organized a multimillion-dollar dowry for his ex-wife’s subsequent marriage after the 2 parted methods, based on a member of the Anti-Corruption Basis’s group.

Maria Pevchikh, head of the investigative unit on the group based by jailed Putin critic Alexei Navalny, wrote in a prolonged Twitter thread Monday that the Russian chief had an untraditional function within the marriage between Lyudmila Ocheretnaya, previously Lyudmila Putina, and Artur Ocheretny.

“Within the previous occasions it was frequent for a bride’s mother and father to rearrange a dowry: one thing precious, like cash, costly materials or jewellery to ‘enhance the bride’s worth,'” Pevchikh wrote. “However Putin took an entire new strategy. He actually organized a multi million greenback dowry for his ex spouse.”

Pevchikh didn’t specify precisely how a lot Putin’s ex-wife’s dowry was value.

Putin’s ongoing and extensively condemned battle in Ukraine has upped curiosity in a few of the extra personal particulars of the longtime Russian chief’s personal life, together with his well being and rumored mistress. Now, the Anti-Corruption Basis is specializing in the connection between his former partner and Ocheretny, who they are saying owns luxurious actual property in Europe.

Pevchikh defined on Twitter that by the point the Russian chief and Lyudmila Ocheretnaya divorced, their marriage had been a “sham” for greater than a decade.

“Lyudmila by no means was an actual First Girl,” Pevchikh wrote about Putin’s ex-wife. “We barely noticed her in public and by no means heard her converse. She could be used yearly as a residing prop at church companies.”

Subsequently, their final divorce “got here as no shock,” Pevchikh stated. After they introduced the break up in 2013, it was on a state tv broadcast as they attended a ballet manufacturing collectively, The Washington Put up reported.

Putin responded to a reporter’s query to verify that rumors of their divorce have been appropriate.

“All my work is expounded to publicity. However there are people who find themselves completely incompatible with this,” he stated, citing his then-wife for example.

“We hardly see one another, and we every have our personal lives,” the Put up quoted Ocheretnaya as saying. “I do not like publicity, and flying wears me down.”

She added that they might “stay very shut” and that she was “grateful” for his continued help.

The Kremlin confirmed that the pair had formally divorced in 2014 after greater than 30 years of marriage.

However even after they parted methods, Putin nonetheless appeared to have his ex-wife in thoughts as he thought of his personal future. At an annual press convention in 2014, when requested whether or not he would marry once more, Putin stated that he would first wish to see Ocheretnaya married “and solely then take into consideration myself,” The Moscow Occasions reported.

This hope got here to fruition when his ex-wife remarried in 2015. Ocheretnaya is now 64 years previous, and her husband is 44.

A Reuters examination of property information in 2017 discovered that Ocheretnaya might be tied to a multimillion-dollar property enterprise. A latest Anti-Corruption Basis investigation additionally discovered that her husband got here to personal a handful of villas and residences throughout a number of nations outdoors of Russia after the divorce, although Newsweek was not in a position to independently confirm these particulars.

Newsweek reached out to the Anti-Corruption Basis for extra particulars, and to the Kremlin for affirmation and touch upon the report.