Federal recordkeepers purge registry data that fueled speculation about Putin’s ex-wife remarrying

Russia’s federal records agency has deleted personal information for a certain “Lyudmila Alexandrovna Ocheretnaya,” who journalists believe to be President Vladimir Putin’s (remarried) ex-wife.

The property records in question concern an apartment in St. Peterburg that the Putins first acquired in 1995. In 1997, the home was transferred to Putin’s then mother-in-law. When she died in 2015, the apartment went to Olga Tsomayeva, Lyudmila’s sister. In September 2015, the apartment was finally sold to someone named Lyudmila Ocheretnaya—a woman with the same first name, patronymic, birthdate, and place of birth as Vladimir Putin’s ex-wife. 

By comparing current and previous versions of the records, the news site Sobesednik found that Lyudmila Ocheretnaya’s date and place of birth and personal insurance number have been erased since it first reported the story.

According to Sobesednik, the president’s now 58-year-old ex-wife married 37-year-old Artur Ocheretnyi, who manages a publishing house and serves as the head of an organization called the Center for Development of Interpersonal Communications. According to Sobesednik.ru, Ocheretnyi previously worked for the firm Art Show Center, which helped organize events for the Putin-loyal political party United Russia, the Putin-inspired political movement All-Russia People’s Front, Gazprom, and others.

Sobesednik‘s report was based on records from the Federal Service for State Registration, Land Register, and Mapping.

This is not the first time information has vanished from the federal records agency. In October 2015, Alexey Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation discovered a home in a prestigious residential area west of Moscow, the Rublyovka, which had previously belonged to the daughter of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. A few days later, information about the home was removed from the federal registry.