Vladimir PutinThe czar of Aristotle’s “family values” would have exchanged her husband, an Orthodox priest, for a Russian billionaire.
Maria Lvova-Belova was filmed walking hand in hand with Konstantin Malofeev in a church procession in Yekaterinburg last week, sparking speculation that the two were romantically involved.
Neither she nor Malofeev commented on the allegations, but sources close to the Orthodox Church said they were true.
Putin appointed Lvova-Belova, 39, to the high position of Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights shortly before invading Ukraine in 2022.
The International Criminal Court has since issued an arrest warrant for her illegal deportation of hundreds of Ukrainian children of areas occupied by Russia.
She has been married to Pavel Kogelman since 2003 and has five children with him and five adopted children. She adopted 18 children in total, including a boy taken from the destroyed Ukrainian city of Mariupol.
The news that she apparently left him was widely reported on a Telegram channel, Brief, sarcastically asking its 570,000 subscribers: “Are we waiting for the wedding of the year?”
Others find the alleged scandal less amusing. One religious scholar suggested to the Verstka media group that this smacked of hypocrisy.
“I think all of this will be resolved, but the question is how? The elite has its own morals, its own rules, and the Church, in general, covers it up,” he told Verstka, who claims that five sources have already corroborated the allegations about the case.
Lvova-Belova has been one of Putin’s most vocal supporters of the war in Ukraine, releasing videos of herself on social media that portray her as a model of modesty and family values.
Wearing long dresses and posing frequently with children, she also uses the clips to convey pro-Kremlin messages and regularly gives talks to children in Ukraine about the sanctity of marriage and its place in religion.
This week she discussed school exams, welcomed a group of Ethiopian language students and gave parenting advice to single mothers. She also said it was important to remember the children killed in “Ukraine’s war of aggression” in the eastern region of Donbass.
“It is impossible to forget the eyes of the injured children and teenagers I visited in hospitals,” she said.
Her alleged lover, Mr. Malofeev, is 50 years old and sports a thick, bushy beard. He is also a strong supporter of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and has strong religious views, earning him the nickname “Orthodox oligarch.”
He funds a media company called Tsargrad, which broadcasts religious propaganda and advocates the creation of Putin as tsar for life. He reportedly divorced his wife last summer.
