Vladimir Putin humiliates Russian supermarket chiefs over expensive sausages

Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, has burnished his populist credentials by storming into a Moscow supermarket and ordering staff to cut the price of their sausages. In keeping with a new strategy of deflecting blame for the country's economic woes onto the standard-bearers of Russian capitalism, Mr Putin excoriated supermarket executives for their greed as ordinary shoppers looked on in bewilderment.

The prime minister abruptly interrupted a meeting with senior retailers at the Moscow White House, the seat of the Russian government, to drag them on an impromptu visit to a nearby branch of the Perekrestok supermarket chain.Striding angrily through the aisles with a retinue of glum executives in tow, Mr Putin came to a halt in the supermarket's cold meat section and gesticulated towards a packet of sausages priced at just under £5.



Rounding on Yuri Kobaladze, the chain's head of corporate relations, Mr Putin demanded: "Why do your sausages cost 240 roubles? Is that normal?" "But these are high quality sausages," Mr Kobaladze replied, looking crestfallen. With a look of relief crossing his face, the executive spotted some cheaper sausages. "Look, these ones are just 49 roubles," he said. But the prime minister was not to be deterred. "Too expensive," he muttered, before conjuring up a price list from his pocket. "I can show you your mark up. Look at this kind of sausage. You've marked it up by 52 per cent."

The exchange was a classic example of the political theatre in which Mr Putin excels. It came just two days after an opinion poll revealed that the principal concern of 75 per cent of Russians was high food prices. With a host of cameramen and photographers there to capture the scene, the stunt was likely to ensure Mr Putin's reputation as a man of action, and thereby absolve him from carrying any blame for the worst economic crisis in Russia for over a decade.