NAVALNY TEAM RELEASES REPORT ON PUTIN’S $1.35B BLACK SEA PALACE

Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny's team has released a report about a sprawling, opulent Black Sea palace allegedly owned by Russian President Vladimir Putin. The video was posted less than two days after Navalny's arrest, Deutsche Welle reported.

The YouTube feature, accompanied by a blog post from the jailed dissident, claims Putin's property cost $1.35 billion (€1.1 billion) and was paid for "with the largest bribe in history."

It alleges that the private estate is 39 times the size of Monaco. Among the facilities it is said to boast are an ice rink and vineyards, with the sprawling mansion containing a theater and casino.

The Agence France-Presse (AFP), Interfax and Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa) also reported on the property.

Described as the "most expensive palace in the world," the palace complex spans some 7,800 hectares (about 19,300 acres), and also includes a church, an amphitheater, a teahouse and a helipad.

The palace was allegedly funded through an elaborate corruption scheme involving Putin's inner circle in return for a favor.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the allegations were old but that the property, near the resort town of Gelendzhik, did not belong to Putin.

The allegations were first made in 2010 by Sergei Kolesnikov, a businessman with connections to Putin before his time in politics. On paper, the property appears to be owned by businessman and billionaire Alexander Ponomarenko

"It is the most secretive and well-guarded facility in Russia, without exaggeration," Navalny says in the video.

"This isn't a country house, it’s not a cottage, it's not a residence — it's an entire city, or rather a kingdom. It has impregnable fences, its own port, its own security, a church, its own permit system, a no-fly zone, and even its own border checkpoint. It’s like a separate state inside of Russia. And in this state, there is a single and irreplaceable czar. Putin."

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