How Vladimir Putin's cheerleaders enjoy the good life in Britain
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/10684221/How-Vladimir-Putins-cheerleaders-enjoy-the-good-life-in-Britain.html
>One is a smooth-talking fixer for Vladimir Putin, with a flat in London and a castle in Austria. Another is a billionaire who likes Britain so much that he flies here by private jet nearly every week. A third has a grandson at a British public school – even though he wants Western textbooks banned in Russian classrooms.
>As Russia and the West square up to each other over Ukraine, Moscow’s political elite has fallen firmly in behind Mr Putin, giving full parliamentary backing to his decision to send troops into Crimea.
>Yet despite acting as cheerleaders for what Nato now says is the gravest threat to European security since the Cold War, many Kremlin functionaries still relish the comforts and security of life in Britain and Europe.
>At least a dozen senior figures in the president’s government have property interests in Europe, while some also educate their offspring there.
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>A reclusive figure, Mr Pichugov has made no public comment on the vote. But another upper house parliamentarian, Andrei Klishas, who has two large properties in Switzerland, was outspoken in support of Mr Putin’s adventure in Ukraine. A day after the vote, he described the pro-European revolution in Kiev as unconstitutional, telling Russian television: “If this is a revolution, we should accept that Ukraine as a state stopped its existence just like Russian Empire in 1917.”
>One Russian expert said that the upper house members were already on an informal list of possible sanctions targets drawn up by European officials, designed to be used in the event that the dispute escalates.
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