Russian oligarch dubbed ‘Putin’s banker’ whose lover complained she couldn’t live on £10,000 a week goes on the run in France

 ….Banker was once trusted friend of Russian president Vladimir Putin

 ….But Russian authorities now want him over alleged £655million theft

 ….His assets were frozen by a British court, leading his lover to complain

 ….He has now gone on the run in France, where he could be arrested

 A banker who was once one of Vladimir Putin’s closest friends has fled London for France claiming he fears for his life, reports Daily Mail.

 Sergey Pugachev, 52, who lives with his British socialite partner Alexandra Tolstoy, fell out with the Kremlin leader and is now a wanted man in Russia.

 He has now gone on the run during a High Court action alleging he stole more than £655 million from Russia, and as he faces an extradition bid by Putin’s prosecutors.

 ‘He keeps receiving straightforward life threats against him and for his family,’ said a spokesman explaining his disappearance abroad.’

 A Russian government body called the Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA) is seeking to recoup a total of almost £2billion in alleged stolen assets from Mr Pugachev who dismisses the claim as political intimidation.

 Once dubbed the Kremlin’s ‘cashier’, he denies siphoning money from a bank called Mezhprombank, arguing he was no long associated with the bank.

 He is instead demanding £9.6 billion from the Russian government as compensation for the alleged expropriation of his huge business empire, action he will take in France.

 Mr Pugachev claims that in London he and his family have been ‘watched and followed’.

 ‘The anti-terror department of Scotland Yard SO15 has found in the cars of Sergei Pugachev and his family members, supposedly, explosive bombs.’

 His spokesman Dmitry Morochenko said Pugachev ‘has no doubt that these events are linked to the fact that he sued Russia in the International Tribunal for the expropriation of his assets and demanded a compensation of $15 billion.’

 Earlier this year Pugachev was ordered to surrender his passports – including one from France – by a London judge who said he was barred form leaving the country.

 It has emerged that the DIA’s lawyers Hogan Lovells raided two Pugachev homes in London and a luxury yacht, taking away computer equipment.

An email from him was sourced to Paris, it is claimed. Pugachev is now likely to face an arrest bid in France on an Interpol alert.

 He recently claimed that he was one of a small group of kingmakers who brought Putin to the presidency when Boris Yeltsin quit in 1999.

 He had introduced the former KGB spy to Yeltsin’s daughter Tatyana, the key meeting in him becoming Yeltsin’s successor, he said.

 He also accused Putin of going back on a promise at a secret meeting between the two men in Amsterdam in 2013 to resolve Pugachev’s dispute.

 ‘About a year and a half ago Putin and I met in Amsterdam,’ Pugachev told Russian opposition channel TV Rain. ‘He said: “I’ll definitely work on it, write me the details, I’ll sort it out”.’ Instead, a criminal case was launched against him in Russia.

 Before going on the run, he said he was ‘afraid’ of being extradited to Russia. Claiming explosive devices had been detected on his car, he said: ‘Those responsible are spiralling backwards, using KGB-style methods that were better left in the past.

 ‘If this is what happens to me outside of Russia, one can only imagine what could happen in Russia. ‘These intimidation tactics further support the fabricated nature of the allegations against me.’

 Mr Pugachev was last year made the subject of a strict High Court order which capped his and his partner, Alexandra Tolstoy’s, spending at £10,000-a-week.

 The freeze prevented the couple – who have three children – from selling their two London homes or their villa in the south of France or doing anything to diminish their value.

 Ms Tolstoy complained the order prevented them from maintaining their historic chateau in the hills overlooking Nice which is set in 15 acres and whose neighbours include Elton John.

 She said: ‘The budget for that house alone is £1.2 million a year (£23,000 a week), hence the legal appeal.

It’s like maintaining a stately home.’ She added: ‘Apart from the five of us, we have live-in nannies and a live-in Bulgarian doctor, because Sergei has a heart problem.’