The family division of the High Court was told that the man made more than £1 billion as an oil and gas trader while his wife brought up their two sons

A Russian-born billionaire must pay his estranged wife £453 million in what is believed to be the biggest divorce award ordered by a judge in Britain.

Mr Justice Haddon-Cave described the former wife as a “hands-on” mother who made an equal contribution to the 20-year marriage. He awarded her 41.5 per cent of the “marital assets” of just over £1 billion after a private hearing in the High Court’s family division in London yesterday.

The judge said that the woman, 44, who was born in eastern Europe, had been a “housewife and a mother throughout the marriage”. The man, 61, worked in London as an oil and gas trader. Nearly five years ago he sold his shares in a Russian company for $1.3 billion. The