A flagship London-based Russian business conference was thrown into disarray yesterday when a dozen influential executives and officials with links to the Kremlin pulled out.

The move prompted speculation that President Putin had ordered the event to be boycotted in light of Britain’s continued refusal to extradite Boris Berezovsky, the billionaire businessman and outspoken opponent of the Russian leader.

Mr Berezovsky sparked an outcry in Moscow last week by claiming that he was financing an anti-Kremlin “revolution”.

Kremlin sources said that the conference boycott was the result of “an order from above”.

The Russian Economic Forum, organised by London-based firm Eventica, is the world’s biggest international networking event for Russian companies. This year’s event, the tenth, begins tomorrow and was due to attract more than 2,000 delegates.

Speakers include Alistair Darling, the Trade Secretary, and Richard Lambert, Director-General of the CBI.

However, Eventica confirmed yesterday that several prominent Russian business figures would not be speaking.

They include Peter Aven, chief executive of Alfa Bank; Sergei Bogdanchikov, head of state-controlled oil giant Rosneft; and Stephen Jennings, the Australian chief of Moscow-based investment bank Rennaissance Group.

Arkady Dvorkovich, special economic adviser to Mr Putin, and Kirill Androsov, Deputy Minister of Economic Trade and Development, have also cancelled their appearances.

One Moscow source claimed that Viktor Ivanov, Mr Putin’s aide, had warned officials “not to turn London into another Courchevel” — a reference to the arrest in January of Mikhail Prokhorov at the ski resort by French police investigating an alleged prostitution ring.

The Russian business figures were urged to support a rival conference in St Petersburg instead.

Eventica has earned a glowing reputation for staging a series of successful social events for London’s burgeoning Russian expat community, such as the annual Winter Ball in Trafalgar Square.

However, the boycott comes just four days after Yury Chaika, Russia’s Prosecutor-General, urged Britain to hand over Mr Berezovsky after his controversial comments. Mr Chaika called on John Reid, the Home Secretary, to intervene personally and strip the oligarch of his asylum status. He accused Britain of allowing itself to become “a bridgehead for provocations against Russia”.

An Eventica insider said: “It’s such a shame that a forum that has so much to say about business in Russia has been coloured by what, in effect, seems to be something very political.”

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