August 7th 2023.
Ksenia Shoigu, the daughter of Russian defence minister Sergey Shoigu, and fitness guru Alexey Stolyarov shocked their hundreds of thousands of followers when they revealed last Saturday that they had parted ways ‘several months ago’.
The pair, who met at the Race of Heroes obstacle race in Alabino in 2019, had kept their marriage a secret before welcoming their daughter into the world earlier this year.
When interviewed by the Russian news channel 360°, Shoigu said, “We haven’t been a couple for quite some time. But at the same time, we are partners and very close friends.” Stolyarov added, “We have been friends for a long time.” He went on to say that they plan to spend more time with their daughter and develop sports projects together.
Unfortunately, Russian social media users quickly began speculating that Vladimir Putin may have played a part in their split, especially considering the fact that Stolyarov has had several scuffles with Putin’s pro-war officials and supporters.
Stolyarov made headlines in February when he liked an anti-war Instagram post from Yuri Dud, a Russian journalist designated as a ‘foreign agent’ by the state for his posts critical of Putin’s war machine. It was then that head of the briefly mutinous mercenary group Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, demanded Stolyarov be conscripted.
Though Stolyarov has faced heat for his views on the war, he remains unabashed in his admiration for Shoigu. He told the online Russian entertainment show Night Contact in 2021, “He is the most positive, the kindest person. I have never met a person like this.”
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