Putin offers to buy New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft a Super Bowl ring
President offers to buy a replacement after team owner is quoted regretting his generosity
Russian President Vladimir Putin is denying insinuations that he stole New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft's Super Bowl ring that is on display in the Kremlin, but says he is ready to buy Kraft another ring as a gift.
Putin was reacting on Sunday through a spokesman to a New York Post story quoting remarks made by Kraft at an awards gala at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in the city on Thursday last week.
He put [the ring] in his pocket and three KGB guys got around him and walked out
"I took out the ring and showed it to (Putin). And he put it on and he goes, 'I can kill someone with this ring'," Kraft said, as quoted by the Post. "I put my hand out and he put it in his pocket and three KGB guys got around him and walked out."
The diamond-encrusted Super Bowl ring worth about US$25,000 changed hands while Kraft was visiting St Petersburg, Russia, in 2005 with an American business delegation that met Putin. At the time, Kraft had said he gave the ring to Putin as a gift.
But the Post story quoted Kraft as saying at Carnegie Hall's Medal of Excellence gala that he had an "emotional tie to the ring" and wanted it back, but the White House had said it would be in the interest of US-Russian relations to claim it was a gift.
Putin arrived in London on Sunday to meet British Prime Minister David Cameron, and spokesman Dmitry Peskov was asked about the Post story.