Vladimir Putin's Fortune: a Pension and a Plot of Land

He has been controversially described as Europe's richest man, with an alleged personal fortune put at more than $40bn.

But yesterday Russia's prime minister Vladimir Putin made a rather more modest declaration of his wealth - owning up to an income last year of a paltry £100,000, including his KGB pension.

His assets included a 1,500 square meter plot of land and "a stake in a garage cooperative equivalent to one car seat".

Putin's declaration follows an initiative by Russian president Dmitry Medvedev to combat the country's ubiquitous corruption. Under a new law passed last December, all senior government officials now have to give annual declarations of their income, together with that of their spouses and underage children.

Medvedev yesterday led by example, revealing that last year he earned £87,170. Critics, however, point out that the exercise is likely to have little or no impact on corruption.

The new legislation does not force Russian bureaucrats to disclose the income of grown-up family members or relatives. No agency has been tasked with establishing whether annual declarations are actually true.

Investigators point out that most wealthy Russian officials hide their real incomes via a network of offshore accounts, often in Switzerland or Liechtenstein.

Last year, the anti-corruption organization Transparency International said Russia had slid down its annual corruption index and was now on a par with Kenya and Bangladesh, with a rating of just 2.1 out of 10.