You might call yourself a patriot. But are you really? When it all boils down to it, would you give away everything for your country? Die for your country? Lie about giving Vladimir Putin a precious gift when he robbed you blind?
The latter is what New England Patriots Owner Robert Kraft says he had to do, when Putin nicked his Super Bowl ring.
New England Patriots won the Super Bowl in 2004 and 2005 and it was in 2005 that Kraft was visiting Russia and he met Vladimir Putin. Kraft described their encounter thus (as per the New York Post in 2013):
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.' I put my hand out and he put it in his pocket, and three KGB guys got around him and walked out.
Until 2013, Kraft had maintained publicly that he gave Putin the ring as a gift, saying in a statement shortly after the encounter:
A great and knowledgeable sports fan, (Putin) was clearly taken with its uniqueness. . . At that point, I decided to give him the ring as a symbol of the respect and admiration that I have for the Russian people and the leadership of President Putin.
Kraft revealed that the George Bush-led White House had called him up and asked that he spin such a line, emphasising that "it would really be in the best interest of US-Soviet relations if you meant to give the ring as a present."
The Kremlin reacted predictably when it heard of Kraft's tale, a spokesman for Putin calling Kraft's comments "weird" and claiming that he "was standing 20 centimetres away" and "saw and heard how Mr. Kraft gave this ring as a gift." Nevertheless Putin offered to give Kraft some equally valuable jewellery "if (the ring) is so valuable to him" - despite maintaining that he couldn't remember Kraft or the ring.
The ring is reportedly in storage at the Kremlin.
