year flat was apparently sold from one of Shuvalov’s firms to another, costing £800,000 stamp duty

Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov (pictured with Putin) secretly owns a lavish £11.4 million apartment just 350 yards from 10 Downing Street

Russia's Deputy Prime Minister secretly owns a lavish £11.4 million apartment just 350 yards from 10 Downing Street.

Despite current ice-cold relations between London and Moscow, Igor Shuvalov has held the leasehold to the flat overlooking the Ministry of Defence for 12 years, shielding it behind mysterious offshore firms.

The 5,380 sq ft penthouse at Whitehall Court, officially owned by a company belonging to the minister, emerged in an investigation by Alexei Navalny, a leading opponent of President Vladimir Putin.

The estimated £800,000 stamp duty due last year, when the flat was apparently sold from one of Shuvalov’s firms to another, amounts to five times his taxable income in Russia of around £153,271, it is claimed.

His official salary as Deputy Prime Minister is only £12,218 a year.

The flat comprises ‘six bedrooms, a dining room with two fireplaces, and a sitting room with a piano and a view over the Thames’, according to Moscow-based Mr Navalny.

He added: ‘Shuvalov hid the flat behind anonymous offshores, and now behind a Russian company, instead of openly admitting his ownership.’

He accuses Shuvalov of hypocrisy over the sumptuous property, as the minister has called on Russians to make sacrifices and stand firm in the face of Western sanctions.

Shuvalov, 48, is effectively the third most powerful man in the Russian government after Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, and is in charge of economic policy.

The Deputy Prime Minister’s spokesman has not denied the investigation’s findings, saying that he ‘does not see any new information’ in the disclosure.