At first she ran after Putin, and then she wanted to run away
Lyudmila Shkrebneva “ran” after Putin for three and a half years until he married her. A former illegal Soviet intelligence officer and writer Sergei Zhirnov, who lives in France, spoke about this in an interview with the founder of the GORDON publication, Dmitry Gordon.
According to him, Putin’s friend got “through great connections” four tickets to Arkady Raikin’s concert and went there with an acquaintance. She took her friend Lyudmila with her, and he took Putin.
“They went there, and she fell in love with him. Well, it happens. […] Moreover, she is an Aeroflot flight attendant, that is, in fact, she flies, the entire Union sits in her chairs, and she fell in love with some Vovik, who, by the way, began to run away from her,” Zhirnov explained.
He quoted a book with Shkrebneva’s story: “I looked after him for three and a half years. Imagine, yes. And he ran away from me.”
A former intelligence officer described it in such a way that, for example, Shkrebneva showed up for a date, and Putin was an hour and a half late.
A former Russian banker living in France, a former friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Sergei Pugachev, told Gordon that already on the second day after the wedding, Lyudmila Putina wanted to leave her husband.
He noted that Putin experiences many complexes, which are realized in non-standard personal preferences. This is evidenced by controversial actions, such as how in 2006, while walking around the Kremlin, Putin approached an unfamiliar boy, lifted his T-shirt and kissed his stomach (this video was published on YouTube. – “GORDON”), and also joked at a meeting with schoolchildren about a “rubber butt,” Pugachev emphasized. He added that Putina told him personally about her husband’s “oddities.”
“Lyudmila wanted to run away from him literally on the second day after the wedding. And what she told me was just cruel. That, in fact, he is a strange person in his personal life,” the businessman said.
Called my husband an idiot
Political commentator and TV presenter Evgeny Kiselyov, in an interview with the editor-in-chief of the online publication GORDON, Alesya Batsman, noted that Vladimir and Lyudmila Putin had a “complicated relationship” and political strategists discussed whether he should get a divorce in advance, even before he became president.
“I heard different stories about how skeptically and, I would even say, contemptuously Lyudmila Putina treated her husband,” Kiselyov shared.
In particular, the journalist mentioned her reaction to the book about Putin “In the First Person,” which included his interviews and fragments of statements about Putin from people who knew him at different periods of his life.
“Lyudmila Putina, having read this book – I know this for sure – said to one of her friends: “Well, before only I knew that he was an idiot, but now the whole country will know.” But there was a much stronger word said instead of the word “idiot,” Kiselyov said.
Violence in marriage
Russian President Vladimir Putin “raped his wife with words in marriage.” This opinion was expressed in an interview with Batzman by Krystyna Kurczab-Redlich, a Polish writer and journalist who researched Putin’s biography.
“He’s just very cruel. As she said, these are her memories from Dresden: “I tried so hard to cook well… He will never praise me. I try to make good meat. He says that it is tough.” And in general, think about it, they live in Dresden on the third floor, she has two small children, she has shopping. And she goes with all this to the third floor. He never helped her. Even the German neighbors said: “Volodya, well, it’s impossible.” He didn’t help her in any way, even when she was pregnant, even when she was working. That is, for him, a woman, as I see it, is no one,” Kurchab-Redlich emphasized.
Pugachev, in an interview with Gordon in 2022, said that over time, Putin moved from verbal violence to assault
“We were once sitting in the kitchen, drinking. I said: “Well, let’s have another drink.” And Lyudmila said to me: “I beg you, don’t, don’t pour it.” He says: “Okay, everything is fine. I'll drink. Let's have a drink. And you are with us.” He got carried away a little. And that means they drank, then Lyudmila burst into tears and left… In general, we parted ways. Lyudmila was sobbing. I said: “What happened? Why are you so worried?” She says: “He can't drink. Do you understand what a sadist he is? Now he’ll drink and start pinching, pressing, and showing me some judo techniques. Then I walk around with bruises for a week,” Pugachev recounted the dialogue with Putin’s wife.
Where is the former first lady of the Russian Federation now?
After the divorce, Putin did not officially marry. In January 2016, the Russian publication Sobesednik reported that the former first lady of the Russian Federation now bears the surname Ocheretnaya. The publication found out that Lyudmila Aleksandrovna received a new passport with the surname Ocheretnaya on February 2, 2014 in Moscow.
Journalists found out that in the immediate circle of Putin’s ex-wife there is Arthur Ocheretny – he heads the publishing house Literary Education and its parent company, the Center for the Development of Interpersonal Communications (CDMC). This center, according to the newspaper, is under the unofficial patronage of Lyudmila Putina. Ocheretny is 20 years younger than Putin’s ex-wife.
Subsequently, Ocheretnaya received a share in the smartphone rental business, Open Media journalists learned.
In May 2022, the UK imposed sanctions against it. Former Russian gymnast Alina Kabaeva, who is considered Putin’s common-law wife, also fell under the same sanctions.
In February 2023, fearing sanctions, Putin’s ex-wife, together with Ocheretny, began to get rid of real estate in Spain. According to the publication, apartments and a house with an area of 229 m² and 405 m² in the elite residential complex Lomas del Rey were put up for sale. They are located in the city of Marbella in southern Spain. El Mundo emphasized that one of the houses is clearly inhabited.
