Putin: I am proud of my acquaintance with Roldugin

Vladimir Putin said that he was proud of people as his childhood friend cellist Sergei Roldugin. It is reported by "Medusa". According to the head of state, Roldugin spends almost all the money earned on musical instruments that he gives to state institutions.

Roldugin is trying to do business, Putin added, but does not earn billions. “He is a minority shareholder in one of our companies and there earns some money, but this, of course, is not billions of dollars,” said the head of state. “Nonsense, there is nothing like it.”

As follows from the documents of the Panama archive published on Sunday evening, Roldugin owns several offshore firms that have a multi -million -dollar circulation due to financial fraud. In addition, these firms were withdrawn funds of Russian companies, in particular Severstal, and the Russian commercial bank, the Cyprus Daughter, VTB - provided Roldugin's structures with an unprocessed loan of $ 650 million.

According to the authors of the investigation, Roldugin is only a "keeper" of other people's money.

On Monday, the President and Chairman of the Board of VTB Andrei Kostin said that the Cyprus bank did not issue firms by Putin's friend of unsecured loans .

Meanwhile, Putin himself for the first time since the publication of Panama documents reacted to reports about Roldugin's business.