The newspaper that recently published a story about President Vladimir Putin, stating he is planning to marry Alina Kabaeva who is an Olympian gold medal-winning gymnast half his age, was shut down on Saturday 19 April. The editor, Grigori Nekhoroshev was forced to resign. The sudden closing of The Moskovski Korrespondent serves as a sharp reminder about the hazards of evoking Kremlin’s disapproval. The rumor of a romance blooming between 55 year-old Putin and 24 year-old Alina, who is also an MP in his party, had been doing the rounds in Moscow since quite some time now.

 

But none from the media dared to publish the information until the previous week. The said newspaper owned up that there was no factual basis for its claim that Putin has divorced Ludmilla, 50, his wife of 24 years to wed Alina in June. But it did mention about a party planner who claimed to be bidding to organize the lavish reception. Both Vladimir Putin as well as Alina Kabaeva have negated this report on their love affair, which though ignored by the Russian media, was lapped up by the European ones.