The Kremlin yesterday angrily said “nyet!’’ to charges that Russian President Vladimir Putin stole a Super Bowl ring belonging to New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft.
Putin’s spokeman, Dmitry Petrov, kept to the party line that Kraft’s bling came to Putin as a symbol of gridiron glasnost during a meeting between the pair and other business leaders in St. Petersburg in 2005.
“What Mr. Kraft is saying now is weird,’’ Petrov told CNN.
“I was standing 20 centimeters away from [Kraft] and Mr. Putin and saw and heard how Mr. Kraft gave this ring as a gift.”
As The Post’s Page Six reported, Kraft told a packed crowd at Carnegie Hall’s Medal of Excellence gala at The Waldorf-Astoria Thursday that he had allowed Putin a chance to look over his prized jewelry: a $25,000 diamond-encrusted ring for New England’s Super Bowl XXXIX victory in 2005.
Putin tried it on — then put it in his pocket before he and KGB handlers quickly walked out, Kraft said.
“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 told the crowd at the event at the Waldorf.
“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 team owner has won two other Super Bowl rings — for the Patriots’ wins against the St. Louis Rams in 2002 and vs. the Carolina Panthers in 2004.
Kraft said he asked the Bush administration for help but was told it would be best if he kept quiet and didn’t make an international incident out of the 4.94-carat caper.
“I really didn’t [want to keep quiet],” Kraft told the gathering. “I had an emotional tie to the ring — it has my name on it. I don’t want to see it on eBay.”
The ring is now on display in the Kremlin library, along with other “official” state gifts that Putin has collected over the years, according to Petrov.
Kraft got the ring after the Patriots beat the Philadelphia Eagles in the 2005 Super Bowl.