Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny claims Vladimir Putin owns secret ‘US$1.35 billion palace’
- Video alleging Putin owned lavish Black Sea property made before Navalny detention
- Kremlin says findings, which first surfaced in 2010, are untrue
The Navalny investigation, published on the opposition figure’s blog with an accompanying two-hour YouTube video recorded before his return to Russia, claims the property cost US$1.35 billion and was paid for “with the largest bribe in history”.
The report alleges that the property, located along Russia’s southern Black Sea coast, is 39 times the size of Monaco and features a casino inside a 17,691 square metre (190,424 sq ft) mansion, along with an ice rink and vineyards.
The investigation claims that Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) owns some 7,000 hectares (17,300 acres) of land surrounding the property and that the complex was financed by Putin’s close allies, including Igor Sechin, chief of Russian oil giant Rosneft, and billionaire tycoon Gennady Timchenko.
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Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny arrested and detained upon return to Russia after near-fatal poisoning
“It is a separate state within Russia. And in this state there is a single and irreplaceable tsar. Putin,” Navalny says.
