Aaaand now comes the retraction of the Putin 'n' cheatin' story in billionaire oligarch Alexander Lebedev's Moskovsky Korrespondent. The paper accused him of not only dumping his wife but marrying former bendy beauty Alina Kabaeva. We speculated previously that the rumor was planted by an anti-"liberal" faction of the government to make Putin and his pal Lebedev look foolish. That it did—just read the translation of the lengthy apology/retraction/mea culpa published today (translated from Russian by Google):

The founder of our newspaper editor Alexander Lebedev delivered to a difficult dilemma. Or at the hands of the facts to prove the truthfulness of the published article in the Saturday issue of "Vladimir Putin married Aline Kabaevoy?" Or recognize contained inaccurate and apologize.... We are sorry if the information published in our article, seemed offensive heroes publication. We apologize to all those who believed that this material has caused them mental suffering.... We learned other lessons—for example, how to work with and how to check the source information extracted. But, perhaps, VIPy learn lessons for themselves? Let's say this: if the power does not provide reliable information, the information space will not remain empty, but will be filled with inaccurate information.

Real talk. [Moscor.ru]