Robert Kraft Breaks Down Meeting Where Vladimir Putin Stole His Super Bowl Ring

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Robert Kraft has won six Super Bowl rings as the owner of the Patriots, but he only has five of them in his possession courtesy of a meeting with Vladimir Putin that was the topic of a segment in the new documentary chronicling his franchise’s dominant reign.

It’s been 30 years since Robert Kraft purchased the New England Patriots for a grand total of $172 million, which was the priciest acquisition in NFL history at the time. However, that turned out to be a pretty good investment when you consider the franchise currently has an estimated value of $7 billion.

The second number is inextricably linked to the virtually unprecedented run the Patriots went on following the turn of the new millennium with the help of Tom Brady and Bill Belichick—a legendary era Apple TV+ has chronicled in the 10-part documentary series aptly dubbed The Dynasty.

In one of the episodes that dropped last week, Kraft recalled the time he got invited to head over to Russia with a group of businessmen who got the chance to meet with Vladimir Putin, who was in the midst of his second term as the president of the country at the time.

We were subsequently treated to a minor international incident when Kraft showed the autocrat the ring he’d recently secured after the Patriots topped the Eagles in Super Bowl XXXIX only to see Putin place it in his pocket and walk away; George W. Bush personally asked him to publicly state he gave it to the leader as a gift in order to diffuse tensions after the press (correctly) positioned it as a theft.

However, Kraft has since decided to abandon that cover story and has no qualms about discussing exactly what went down.

Here’s what he had to say:

“I pulled the ring out of my pocket and gave it to him. He put it on and then he looked at me and he said, ‘I could kill someone with this ring’. So I did a whiplash and I said, ‘Mr. President, you could kill someone without it. You were head of the KGB.’

He took the ring off and I had my hand out and he took the ring. He put it in his side pocket. Three KGB guys come around him and he’s off.”

It’s believed the ring—which is reportedly worth $25,000—still sits inside the library at the Kremlin to this day.