WATCH: Big pussycat Vladimir Putin gives schoolgirl a kitten

RUSSIAN president Vladimir Putin has proved he is really a big pussycat by taking time out of diplomatic crunch talks to give a schoolgirl a kitten.

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I thought if the president can't help me, who can?

Veronica Bezuglova, 10

Determined Veronica Bezuglova, 10, wrote to the uncompromising leader after her mother couldn't afford a pet moggie for the family home in the Murmansk Oblast region, in north west Russia. 

The schoolgirl, from the town of Kovdor, asked the nation's most powerful man to make her dream come true.

Her family were stunned when Mr Putin took a break from brandishing the claws of the Russian bear at the West - as part of diplomatic deadlock over the Ukraine crisis - to show his softer side. 

Plain-speaking Veronica wrote to the ex-KGB officer: "Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin! We live without a father." 

She added: "We do not have much money, and because of that, even at New Year we only had a few sweets.

"But what I want is to get a little lop-eared kitten. Red or grey will do." 

Veronica explained later: "I found his address on the internet and so I wrote that on an envelope, stuck on a stamp and posted it with my message. 

"I thought if the president can't help me, who can?" 

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Vladimir Putin gave Veronica Bezuglova, 10, a pet kitten

The youngster's astonished family only heard about her letter when Kremlin official Nikolai Karelian contacted them to ask them where they wanted their pedigree Scottish Fold kitten delivered to.

Her grandfather Anatoly Glazunov, 60, said: "I thought it was a practical joke but eventually he convinced me it was genuine." 

He added: "Then I remembered that years ago we'd seen a news report about Mr Putin giving a puppy to a little boy.

"We'd forgotten all about it, but Veronica hadn't." 

A video has now emerged showing the  kitten's arrival Kovdor from the Kremlin, with the sender marked as Russian President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. 

The news came after a bomb killed at least two people, including a police officer, and injured at least 10 more at a rally in Ukraine's second city Kharkiv. 

A peace deal between pro-Russian rebels and the Ukrainian government, struck with the aid of Franco-German diplomacy earlier this month, is looking increasingly fragile.

More than 5,300 people have been killed and 1.5 million have been forced from their homes since fighting began in the Ukraine, last February. 

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Veronica Bezuglova, 10, with her pet the pet kitten given to her by President Putin
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