A thief made off with a handbag stuffed with 4.5 million euros in jewels belonging to the daughter of the mayor of Kiev while she was on a visit to Paris on Monday, a judicial source said.
  
Kristina Chernovetskaya, whose father Leonid Chernovetsky is a banker and mayor of the Ukrainian capital, was traveling from Paris airport in a chauffeur-driven car when a man approached the vehicle and grabbed the bag.
  
The theft occurred around noon in Saint-Denis, a suburb north of Paris.
  
Chernovetskaya told police that the bag contained rings, earrings and other jewels worth 4.5 million euros (six million dollars), the source added.   Meanwhile, the Kiev mayor’s office denied Tuesday that Chernovetskaya had been robbed of 4.5 million euros worth of jewels in Paris.   A mayorial advisor, Marta Grimska, told news agency Interfax, “This report has nothing to do with Kristina,” she said.   She was quoted by another media source, the web site of the Ukrainska Pravda, as saying: “I told [Kristina] this story [about the theft] yesterday on the phone, and she laughed a lot. Nothing happened to her.”   She added that the mayor’s daughter had been in Kiev the whole week.   Leonid Tchernovetski was the head of one of the largest Ukranian banks before being elected mayor of Kiev in 2008.  

Tchernovetski has suffered criticism in the past for mismanagement of government funds and is known for its extravagant spending and penchant for luxury goods.