Leonid Bershidsky, Columnist

Putin's Divorce Shocks Russians

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who announcedÂ today that he is splitting with his wife Lyudmila after nearly 30 years of marriage, will be his country's first divorced leader since Peter the Great.

June 6, 2013 at 8:49 PM UTC

By Leonid Bershidsky

Leonid Bershidsky, formerly Bloomberg Opinion’s Europe columnist, is a member of the Bloomberg News Automation Team. He recently published Russian translations of George Orwell’s “1984” and Franz Kafka’s “The Trial.”

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Russian President Vladimir Putin, who announced today that he is splitting with his wife Lyudmila after nearly 30 years of marriage, will be his country's first divorced leader since Peter the Great.

Peter, in 1698, forced his first wife Yevdokia to take vows as a nun. The Putins, who broke the news after attending a performance of the ballet "Esmeralda" in the Kremlin, say their parting is more amicable.