Things You Didn’t Know About Vladimir Putin’s Ex Wife | HO!!

When Vladimir Putin and his wife, Lyudmila Putina, announced their divorce on live TV in 2013, the world was stunned. The moment was cold, almost clinical, unfolding after a ballet performance in Moscow. Within months, Lyudmila vanished from Putin’s official biography, as if she’d never existed. But behind the scenes, she was living a life more complex—and more mysterious—than anyone could have imagined.

This is the story of a woman who survived the Soviet Union, married Russia’s most powerful man, and then disappeared into a world of money, secrets, and reinvention.

From Ruins to Resilience

Lyudmila Aleksandrovna Shkrebneva was born on January 6, 1958, in Kaliningrad, a city still haunted by the ruins of World War II. Her family lived in cramped quarters, struggling to make ends meet. Her father worked long hours in a factory, while her mother manned a cashier’s counter. By age 10, Lyudmila was already caring for her younger sister, Olga—cooking, cleaning, and helping with homework.

Despite the hardships, Lyudmila dreamed big. She wanted to be an actress, auditioning for the Leningrad Theater Institute—but was rejected. Undeterred, she worked as a nurse and mail carrier, anything to keep moving forward.

In 1975, she entered Leningrad State University. Most students graduated in five years; Lyudmila stayed for eleven. She studied philology, focusing on Spanish, and became fluent in several languages. Her determination set her apart—she worked part-time at a Soviet post office, earning barely enough for food, lived in a freezing dorm, and wore the same boots for years. But at university, she found joy in acting again, joining theater groups and impressing even native Spanish speakers with her pronunciation.

Life Above the Clouds—and Under Surveillance

Lyudmila’s linguistic talents led her to Aeroflot, the Soviet airline, in the early 1980s. Being a flight attendant was one of the most competitive jobs in the USSR—only three out of every hundred applicants were accepted. The training was brutal, covering everything from first aid to handling political emergencies. Because she spoke Spanish and German, Lyudmila was cleared for rare international flights.

These trips offered glimpses of a world most Soviets never saw—Cuba, Nicaragua, East Germany. She earned three times the salary of domestic attendants. But the glamour masked constant surveillance. KGB agents traveled on every flight, monitoring crew and passengers. Even casual conversations in foreign languages could be seen as suspicious.

Her flying career ended abruptly in 1980 after a scandal—she was accused of selling sandwiches and snacks to passengers, a form of illegal trade in the Soviet economy. Rumors swirled about black-market rings among flight attendants. To avoid trouble, Lyudmila quietly resigned and returned to university.

Building a Family in the Shadows

Lyudmila met Vladimir Putin in 1980 at a comedy concert in Leningrad. He was already with the KGB, though she didn’t know it at first. Their relationship was rocky—Putin was often late, leaving her waiting in subway stations for hours. Still, she stayed. They married on July 28, 1983, in a simple civil ceremony on a boat on the Neva River. Only months before, Putin had finally admitted his KGB job.

By 1985, they moved to Dresden, East Germany, where Putin was stationed. Their first daughter, Maria, was born just before the move; their second, Yekaterina, was born in Dresden in 1986, making her the only Putin child born abroad during active KGB operations. Lyudmila was raising children in a foreign land, surrounded by surveillance, rarely seeing her husband.

Teacher, Mentor, Survivor

After returning to Russia, Lyudmila taught German at Leningrad State University from 1990 to 1994, drawing on her experiences in East Germany. She was more than a language teacher—she mentored female students, encouraging them to think independently in a male-dominated academic world. Her teaching methods, using real-life literature and cultural material, influenced curriculum reforms during the early post-Soviet years.

All the while, she was raising two daughters, juggling motherhood with her career. In 1996, a fire in their St. Petersburg home forced Lyudmila to rescue her daughter from the second floor. As Putin’s political career accelerated, she sent both daughters to Germany under the care of a former Stasi officer for protection.

At the Heart of Russia’s Telecom Empire

In 1998, Lyudmila took a job at Telecom Invest, a company tied to Putin’s closest allies. At first, it seemed like a simple administrative role. In reality, Telecom Invest was becoming a $14 billion giant, controlling most of Russia’s cellular market. Lyudmila’s Moscow office processed paperwork for billion-ruble deals, telecom licenses, and strategic blockades against competitors.

Swiss and German investigators later described Telecom Invest as a massive laundering scheme, hiding public assets behind offshore companies. Lyudmila’s role placed her at the center of these operations, handling documentation for licenses used to block rivals and control the market.

The Quiet First Lady

When Putin became president, Lyudmila took on the role of first lady—but she wasn’t just a ceremonial figure. She launched a major Russian language project, sending over 50,000 books to children’s homes, and helped design postage stamps for book festivals. In 2002, she blocked an attempt to reform Russian spelling rules, arguing the timing was wrong for a country still rebuilding.

Yet, behind the scenes, Lyudmila struggled with a fear of flying—a trauma from a terrifying flight in 1984. From 2000 to 2012, she missed major global summits, never traveling with Putin to China, India, or Brazil. The irony was lost on no one: the former Aeroflot attendant now terrified of jets.

The Divorce—and the Vanishing Act

On June 6, 2013, after the final curtain of “La Esmeralda” at the Kremlin Palace, Putin and Lyudmila announced their divorce on state TV. The moment was staged, sterile, and hollow. Within months, the Kremlin erased every trace of Lyudmila from Putin’s official biography. Only their daughters remained.

But Lyudmila hadn’t disappeared. Six months after the divorce, her new husband, Artur Ocheretny—21 years her junior—quietly bought a $5.4 million villa in Anglet, France. The mansion, Villa Suzanna, sits on 5,000 square meters, with four bedrooms, a music room, and a pool overlooking the Atlantic. Locals whispered that the villa really belonged to Putin’s ex-wife.

The couple also owned $2.2 million in luxury apartments in Marbella, Spain, perfectly timed to benefit from Spain’s Golden Visa program. Their declared assets reached over $11 million, but their known incomes didn’t add up. Artur had no big business; he mostly ran Lyudmila’s nonprofit.

The Money Trail

Lyudmila secretly owned 7% of CarMoney, one of Russia’s biggest micro-lenders, through an offshore company in Cyprus. Using her maiden name, she bought in. By 2019, CarMoney’s portfolio reached $40.5 million, and her share generated serious income.

She also controlled Moscow’s historic Volkonsky House through a web of companies. The building, once owned by Leo Tolstoy’s grandfather, brought in $3–4 million yearly from tenants like VTB Bank and Sberbank. In 2013, the same year her divorce was announced, the building was mysteriously rebuilt from two floors to four—despite national heritage protections and protests from cultural figures.

Her nonprofit, the Center for Development of Interpersonal Communications, received millions in grants from Russian Railways and the Moscow city government. The center operated out of a historic mansion she controlled, offering odd programs like “mage archetype workshops” and “brain gymnastics.” The nonprofit raked in millions while refusing to publish mandatory financial records.

Life After the Kremlin

Photos of Lyudmila boarding planes with Artur in London shocked Russians. She had once lived in the shadows as first lady; now she was globe-trotting with properties in France, Spain, and Switzerland. In Davos, the couple quietly owned a $3.7 million apartment.

But the fairy tale hit a wall in December 2023 when French authorities seized Villa Suzanna, flagging it in a money-laundering investigation triggered by Transparency International. The villa now sits empty, its doors sealed by the French state—marking the first Western seizure directly linked to Putin’s ex-wife.

The Woman Behind the Myth
Rumors have long swirled about Lyudmila hiding in a monastery near Estonia, banished by Putin or choosing silence herself. For over two years after the divorce, she vanished from public view. By 2015, she was the most Googled woman in Russia, and her secret marriage shattered the convent myth.

Through it all, Lyudmila remained an enigma. She survived Soviet hardship, built a career, raised two daughters, and navigated the treacherous waters of Russian power politics. She once joked that Putin was a vampire, and when asked on TV why they were divorcing, she answered plainly: “Each of us has his own life.”

It wasn’t sadness. It was survival.