"What you are saying has not a single word of truth," Putin, 56, said at a news conference Friday while visiting Italian Prime Minister-elect Silvio Berlusconi.

Putin's response came after a newspaper, Moscow Korrespondent, published an item claiming the president had secretly ended his marriage intended to wed 2004 Olympic gold medalist beauty Alina Kabayeva, The New York Times reported.

Kabayeva, 24, now is a member of the Russian Parliament and is a member of United Russia, the political party Putin heads.

The Moscow newspaper admitted Friday its earlier report had "no factual basis" after its owner, Aleksandr Lebedev, told his staff to support the allegations or apologize, The Times of London reported.

"I do not like when journalists pull sensations out of thin air. Everything that is written there falls into this category," Lebedev wrote a published response to the original article.

Moskovsky Korrespondent reportedly has been suspended "for financial reasons."