Russian parliamentarian Vladimir Zhirinovsky and British MP George Galloway are also both named but have denied the allegations.

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Vladimir Zhirinovsky's ultra-nationalist Liberal Democrats are, like their leader, notoriously extreme in rhetoric but highly pragmatic in practice.

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The Duma has been losing influence with the waning of Mr Zhirinovsky.

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Vladimir Zhirinovsky is Russia's most eccentric and outrageous political leader, whose pronouncements now appear less as serious statements than a form of political theatre.

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Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the fascist Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), frequently endorses the restoration of the historical Russia within the boundaries of the Russian empire.

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The extravagantly far-right demagogue, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, has run out of puff.

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The controversial leader of the Russian Liberal Party, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, said in a statement on Monday that he will ask the Nobel Committee to strip President Barack Obama of the Nobel Peace Prize.

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Despite its apparent extremism, the parliamentary faction of Mr Zhirinovsky's Liberal Democratic Party of Russia often votes with, rather than against, the Yeltsin government, and Mr Zhirinovsky's public statements, invariably laced with dark humour, sometimes verge on self-parody.

BBC: News | Russia at the polls