President Putin completes official program of his state visit to Britain

Russian President Vladimir Putin has completed the official program of his four-day state visit to Great Britain.

The brief farewell ceremony, involving Queen Elizabeth II, Duke of Edinburgh Philip, the Russian president and his wife was staged on the steps in the courtyard of the Buckingham Palace.

Putin thanked the queen and the duke for their hospitality.

The ceremony over, the presidential cortege headed for Heathrow, where Putin and his wife will catch a plane to Kaliningrad, the centre of the Kaliningrad region /a Russian enclave on the Baltic Sea/.