Putin divorce sparks denial and disbelief in Moscow

RUSSIA: Vladimir Putin and his wife had gone on national television to tell the world their marriage was over. Yet on the streets of Moscow today I found many Russians still refusing to believe that a Russian President could even contemplate getting a divorce.

“I don’t believe it,” Valery told me, “I don’t. Our leaders just don’t do that sort of thing. They never have.”

Nadezhda wouldn’t believe me, either.

“It’s nothing more than gossip,” she snapped, “That must have been a clown on TV last night posing as Putin!” I spent five minutes trying to convince Nadezhda that there was no clown, that it really had been President Putin on TV. But she wouldn’t believe me. She told me that Vladmir Putin and his wife had “responsibilities to the Russian people and to God” and could never divorce. Such disbelief is understandable.

BBC NEWS