Putin: I'm no dancing queen

Published on Tuesday 10 February 2009 10:55

VLADIMIR Putin's spokesman wrote to a newspaper today to deny the Russian prime minister attended a secret gig by a UK Abba tribute band.

Singers with British-based cult act Bjorn Again claimed Mr Putin danced a jig and yelled "bravo" after they performed songs for him in a theatre 200 miles north of Moscow.

Last week Kremlin officials denied Mr Putin was at the concert, and today his official spokesman took the unusual step of writing to The Times to reiterate the point.

Mamma mia, here we go again.

Dmitry Peskov said he was "sorry to disappoint" the band over the January 22 gig.

"I don't know who their audience consisted of, but Vladimir Putin was not one of them," he wrote.

"He was actually working in his office that Thursday evening, meeting members of the Cabinet."

Bjorn Again founder Rod Stephen said on Friday the band – which has played throughout the world since it was formed in 1988 – had been paid 20,000 for the gig, and Mr Putin had a "great time".

The band claimed the prime minister, a former KGB spy who cultivates something of a hard-man image, sat on a sofa veiled by a lace curtain with a "glamourous" woman during the concert on the shores of Lake Valdai.

Mr Stephen, 50, said the Russian premier particularly enjoyed Mamma Mia and Super Trouper, but Mr Peskov's letter paints a different picture.

"Mr Putin is more of a Beatles fan than an Abba one, as you can see if you read an interview by Andrew Lloyd Webber with Mr Putin on our website," he wrote to The Times.

Mr Putin made headlines across the world when he appeared in pictures fishing while topless.

His tough-guy image was bolstered by other photographs showing him in judo bouts, holding firearms and apparently tranquillising a tiger.

This is believed to be the first time a nuclear power has written to a newspaper over a 70s tribute band.