During a recent RTR tv interview with Igor Shuvalov, Putin’s special envoy at the G8, the tv presenter made this observation:

…Well, a diplomatic answer, though I must say that it sounds good on British soil. I looked at prices at petrol stations here - R46 [£0.91/$1.60] a litre of unleaded petrol - despite the fact that it is an oil producing country. God knows how they reach these prices.

[The quote came via a Johnson’s Russia List, who in turn got it via BBC Monitoring, so no direct link, sorry.]

As a Brit, allow me to enlighten the presenter - petrol costs so much here because of tax, tax, and more tax.  Plus a little extra tax for good measure. 

Petrol in the UK is taxed at the staggering rate of around 650%, which means that the cost over here is more than four times what the average US consumer pays (I’m not sure how much a litre costs in Russia these days, or what the tax burden is - does anyone out there know?).