Kremlin: Putin does not have a palace and we cannot reveal the names of the palace owners

A week after Navalny's revelations and the release of a video of "Putin's Palace," a Kremlin spokesman said the building belonged to several tycoons, but he could not name them. Navalny said the palace was built with large bribes.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the palace allegedly belonging to Putin the property of several Russian businessmen and entrepreneurs, while emphasizing that the government had no right to reveal the identities of the owners.

A video posted by prominent Putin critic Alexei Navalny of the lavish palace and its surrounding estate has been viewed more than 90 million times on YouTube. Navalny says the castle on the Black Sea coast is worth more than 100 million rubles (1.1 billion euros) and its area and surrounding properties are 40 times larger than the principality of Monaco. The footage that has been made public was taken from above by a drone.

Navalny has said that the existing documents show that the owners of the palace and its annexes are other people who could not afford such a huge expense. He says that the construction and maintenance of the palace were financed by bribes received by oligarchs close to Putin at state-owned companies.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied on Tuesday, January 26, that Putin or his close associates owned the building, but did not answer reporters' questions about why the place is guarded by agents of the FSB intelligence and secret service and the FSO surveillance and security service, and has state guards and bodyguards.

Alexei Navalny has called the palace and its surrounding properties "a country within a country" and considered it evidence of the greatest scandal and financial corruption in Russian history.

The revelation of the palace's existence, along with Navalny's arrest, has been the most important factor in the public protests in Russia in recent days. Navalny returned to Moscow last week after several months of treatment in Germany but was immediately arrested. The day after his arrest, anti-government demonstrations took place in 100 Russian cities with slogans of Navalny's freedom, leading to the arrest of at least 3,700 people.

Source: DW