During his first two presidential terms, she was the self-effacing and modestly dressed wife, dutifully posing for photographs and hosting state visits but largely staying in the background. By the start of his third term, she was virtually invisible. One year later, she was gone.
On June 6, 55-year-old Lyudmila Putina took to Russian state television with President Vladimir Putin for a joint announcement about their upcoming divorce. The smile on her face was as happy as any bride's on her wedding day. “It really was a mutual decision,” Mrs Putin said. “It is a civilised divorce.”
During her 14 years as wife of the prime minister and then the president, Putina remained largely in the shadows, her absence fuelling tabloid reports that she had either been stashed away by her husband in a convent, in the style of Peter the Great and Ivan the Terrible, or left by him for Alina Kabayeva, a former Olympic gymnast and Duma deputy 25 years her junior.