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Russian businessman Arkady Rotenberg said on Saturday he owned a palace in southern Russia that jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has linked to Vladimir Putin.
Navalny and his anti-corruption foundation released a video alleging that the opulent mansion is owned by the Russian president. The video has been viewed over 103 million times.
Rotenberg, Putin’s former judo training partner who sold his stake in gas pipeline construction company Stroygazmontazh in 2019 for a sum that the RBC business daily estimates at around 75 billion rubles (£ 72 million) , said he bought the palace two years ago.
“Now it will no longer be a secret, I am the beneficiary,” Rotenberg said in a video posted by the Mash Channel in Telegram. “There was a rather complicated facility, there were a lot of creditors and I managed to become the beneficiary.”
He gave no further financial details about the purchase or how it was funded.
Putin has denied ownership of the palace.
Navalny was remanded in custody for 30 days on January 18 for parole violations he said were trumped up. He could face years in prison. He was arrested after returning to Moscow from Germany, where he was recovering from nerve poisoning last August.
After Navalny’s arrest, thousands of people joined unauthorized protests across Russia last Saturday to demand the Kremlin to release him from prison.
His supporters plan to stage further protests across Russia on Sunday. Authorities declared the gatherings illegal and promised to stop them.
Rotenberg was among Russian officials and business executives blacklisted from the United States and other Western states following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014.
Russian police on Saturday arrested Sergey Smirnov, editor-in-chief of independent media outlet Mediazona, in Moscow on suspicion of participating in the Moscow protest last weekend, Mediazona said on Saturday.
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