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/ 12 February 2008
When Vladimir Putin drives to work every morning from his presidential bungalow he doesn’t pass the poor, the needy or the hungry. Instead, he passes Gucci, Armani and Prada. In the unlikely event that his presidential Mercedes breaks down, he could pop into Barvikha Luxury Village, an elite shopping complex just down the road from Putin’s dacha.
Relations between Russia and Britain were facing fresh turbulence on Wednesday after a billionaire oligarch wanted by the Kremlin for tax evasion was reported to have escaped to London. Mikhail Gutseriyev — the former head of one of Russia’s largest private oil firms — disappeared from Russia last week.