Last Saturday, a Moscow magazine named Moskovsky Korrespondent published a sensational article claiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin had divorced his middle-aged wife, Ludmila, and was preparing to marry a gorgeous 24-year-old Olympic gymnast-turned-topless magazine model-turned-Duma-deputy, Alina Kabaeva.

For some strange reason the story languished all week without getting picked up by a single rival Russian publication—until yesterday, when the European press ran with it, placing Putin alongside other horny Euro-midget dictators like Nicolas Sarkozy and Silvio Berlusconi. The Kremlin refused to comment. Kabaeva, most notable for her flexibility, has already threatened to sue Moskovsky Korrespondent if it doesn't retract the story. And this is where a seemingly small-time gossip scandal starts to get interesting.

Follow along: The magazine that printed the original story is owned by billionaire oligarch Alexander Lebedev (ranked the 358th richest person in the world by Forbes), who made his fortune in some highly dodgy banking schemes during Russia's highly dodgy 1990s. During the Putin years, Lebedev transformed himself into a sort of "loyal liberal oligarch," on the one hand supporting Putin politically, on the other hand, taking control of the anti-Kremlin muckraking newspaper Novaya Gazeta, the same paper where journalist and Putin foe Anna Politkovskaya worked until she was assassinated in 2006. In a normal place, supporting Putin and owning an anti-Kremlin newspaper would seem like a contradiction. But nothing's quite normal in post-Soviet Russia.

What's more curious is why, in a country where information is hard to come by and wars over assets and power are often fought in the press, Lebedev's lesser-known Moskovsky Korrespondent would publish such a scurrilous, not to mention dangerous, article about his buddy Vlad. Particularly in a country where The Leader's private life is not open to scandal and mud-dragging.

Lebedev said he can't figure that one out either. In an interview yesterday with the liberal radio station Ekho Moskvy and on his personal LiveJournal blog, Lebedev claimed ignorance of the Putin-Kabaeva marriage article in his own paper, saying he found out about it four days after its publication: "I just returned from a fishing trip [on April 15]," Lebedev wrote, "where the fruits of civilization, including telephone communications, are lacking: nature, nature, and more nature. That's why I just learned about the famous article..."

Lebedev distanced himself from the story, saying that it was most likely bullshit ("newspaper duck" in Russian), but he was giving his journalists the chance to either confirm its veracity, or retract it. Kabaeva has already denied it, and the alleged source, the director of a party-planning agency in St. Petersburg which the article claimed was participating in a "tender" to manage a Putin-Kabaeva wedding ceremony in June, also issued a denial.

Now the conspiracy theory, which involves a high-stakes battle between two of Russia's most powerful warring factions: On one side, the so-called "liberals" headed by president-elect Dmitry Medvedev (Putin's boy), and backed by the prosecutor's office and the 40,000-armed-man-strong Anti-Narcotics Committee; on the other, the so-called "FSB" clan made up of the successor to the KGB as well as a rival prosecuting government organ, the Investigation Committee.

Last November, the FSB and the Investigation Committee arrested a powerful deputy finance minister allied with the "liberal" faction on charges of massive embezzlement. It was like a shot across the liberals' bow by the FSB, who feared Putin was on the verge of choosing a liberal as his successor. Well, he did anyway. Medvedev. But the arrested deputy finance minister, Sergei Storchak, is still rotting in prison, proof that the war liberal-FSB is still going strong.

Storchak is not only on the liberal side of the war, he also has a strong connection to Moskovsky Korrespondent owner and oligarch Lebedev. Lebedev, citing his 30-year-long friendship with Storchak, offered in an open letter to publish Storchak's letters from prison in his Moskovsky Korrespondent. A few weeks ago, the first of Storchak's missives ran.

Which leads us back to the seemingly bunk Putin rumor. It looks more and more likely that someone from the FSB planted it knowing it would make Lebedev and his paper look foolish. That would be a clear retaliation for Lebedev's attempts to exonerate Storchak, the FSB's most valuable captured chess piece in its battle against Putin and the liberals he's propped up. The FSB's message is simple: If you fuck with us, we'll fuck with you, your paper, and Putin—in more ways than you know.