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You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/21/vladimir-putin-robert-kraft-stolen-patriots-ring
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| Version 0 | Version 1 |
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| Vladimir Putin offers to replace Robert Kraft's 'stolen' Patriots ring | Vladimir Putin offers to replace Robert Kraft's 'stolen' Patriots ring |
| (about 11 hours later) | |
| If Vladimir Putin ever takes anything from you, worry not: he will replace it with something bigger and better. | If Vladimir Putin ever takes anything from you, worry not: he will replace it with something bigger and better. |
| Addressing allegations that he stole a ring from billionaire Robert Kraft, awarded after the American football team he owns won the Super Bowl, the Russian president said: "You know, I remember neither Mr Kraft nor the ring. | |
| "If it's such a valuable thing for Kraft and his team, then I have a proposal," Putin said in response to a question at an annual economic forum in St Petersburg. | |
| "I'll ask our firms to put together a really good, big thing, so everyone will see what an expensive thing it is, with good metal and a stone, so it will be passed from generation to generation in the team, whose interests are represented by Mr Kraft." | |
| The owner of the New England Patriots told a US audience this month that Putin had pocketed the $25,000 (£16,000) diamond-encrusted ring during an awkward meeting in St Petersburg in 2005. | |
| "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, the New York Post reported last week. | |
| "I put my hand out and he put it in his pocket, and three KGB guys got around him and walked out." | |
| Kraft said the White House had convinced him to cover up the theft by claiming it was a gift. "I really didn't [want to]," he said. "I had an emotional tie to the ring, it has my name on it." | Kraft said the White House had convinced him to cover up the theft by claiming it was a gift. "I really didn't [want to]," he said. "I had an emotional tie to the ring, it has my name on it." |
| Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, has previously denied that Putin pocketed the ring and said he saw Kraft give the ring to the longtime president as a present. | |
| The ring is on display in a Kremlin library devoted to gifts. The scandal has dominated coverage of Putin for more than a week, with analysts taking it as a sign of his ruthlessness and love of luxury goods. | |
| Continuing his sarcastic tone, Putin said he thought his proposal "would be the smartest solution partners can ever achieve while tackling such a complicated international problem". | Continuing his sarcastic tone, Putin said he thought his proposal "would be the smartest solution partners can ever achieve while tackling such a complicated international problem". |
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