VIDEO A new palace of President Vladimir Putin, more than 9,000 square meters, was discovered on the coast of the Black Sea
The palace is located at Cape Aya in Russian-occupied Crimea, PHOTO: east2west news / WillWest News / Profimedia Images
The Anti-Corruption Fund (FBK), created by the deceased Russian opponent Aleksei Navalnyi, published on Tuesday information about a new palace assigned to Russian President Vladimir Putin, in the annexed Crimean peninsula, reports the EFE agency, quoted by Agerpres.
“This secret property was miraculously overlooked by society, but we found it and proved that it belongs to Putin,” FBK stated on its official portal.
According to investigative journalists, this palace, valued at 127.6 million dollars, is located at the head of Aya, in the south of the Crimean peninsula, and was built on land that, in the Soviet era, housed a sanatorium, and which in 2007 was bought by the family of the former Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych, to build a country villa.
After the annexation of the Crimean peninsula, the pro-Russian governor of Sevastopol, Sergei Meniailo, stated that this land would be handed over to Russian authorities to build a sanatorium, but the land later came under the control of Russia's Directorate for Presidential Affairs.
According to FBK, the building became the property of companies led by Yuri and Boris Kovalciuk, close associates of the Russian president, who considerably expanded the works.
Navalny's followers have published architectural plans and photos of the palace, which has a 233-square-meter hall, 154- and 183-square-meter bedrooms and a marble bathtub, as well as a swimming pool, a cinema hall and other luxury amenities.
In early 2021, Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalnyi denounced the fact that President Vladimir Putin owns a castle valued at over a billion dollars and provided by Russia's corrupt elite in Gelendzhik on the Black Sea.
Following the release of the video, which has been viewed by nearly a hundred million YouTube users, hundreds of thousands of Russians took to the streets to protest Navalny's arrest and the Russian president's corruption.
Putin's palace guest house alone is 5,000 square meters
The main residence of the compound now discovered by Russian investigative journalists covers more than 9,000 m², with a separate guest house of 5,000 m², additional staff buildings, technical facilities and a recently built helipad. Below, there is private water frontage, a pontoon and a man-made white sand beach.
“The financing scheme is identical to that of the palace in Gelendzhik: the same oligarchs, the same ghost companies and the same bribe to Putin,” FBK emphasizes.
On paper, the property is hidden behind a chain of companies. The palace belongs to Bereg LLC, which is connected to Golden Gate, a company with classified owners. The same lawyers appear here as in the case of the palace in Gelendzhik: Belkin, Ulyanov and Shakhov.
The interior design documents explicitly specify that everything must comply with the requirements of the FSO (Federal Protection Service), which excludes the hypothesis of an oligarch's property. “The FSO only protects the president,” Russian investigative journalists emphasize.
The main contractor, Credo Management Company, is the same firm that worked on many of Putin's official and unofficial residences, including those in Valdai, Gelendjik and Krasnaia Poliana.
