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RUSSIA-POLITICS-OPPOSITION-PUTIN
Russia state TV claims ‘no luxury’ at ‘Putin palace’
MOSCOW, Jan 29, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – Russian state television on Friday
rejected opposition claims that a Black Sea property allegedly owned by
President Vladimir Putin was a luxurious palace by airing footage of it under
construction.
The Russian leader has come under pressure after Alexei Navalny, his best-
known domestic critic, was detained on his return to Moscow on January 17 and
whose team two days later released an investigation into an opulent seaside
complex it said belonged to Putin.
The report, which has since garnered more than 100 million views on
YouTube, has helped spur the largest street protests in Russia in years and
forced Putin to deny that he or his relatives own the property.
On Friday, the Mash news channel, which is hosted on the Telegram
messenger service, published a video on Telegram and YouTube that showed its
reporter on a tour of a mansion it said was the same one from Navalny’s
investigation.
The residence, which resembles the one that Navalny’s investigation
depicted with photos previously published online, video shot overhead by
drone and 3D visualisations based on leaked architectural blueprints, is
shown to be in under construction.
In the room where Navalny’s report says is a hookah lounge, the Mash
reporter finds building equipment.
At a site described as an akvadiskoteka, or aquatic disco, in the Kremlin
critic’s investigation, the Mash video finds an empty fountain.
Later Friday the Mash video appeared on the state-run Rossiya-24
television channel.
“Well, all that luxury that is supposed to be inside that huge building is
not there, and that’s because the building is just one big construction
site,” a broadcaster said.
Maria Pevchikh, who heads the investigation team at Navalny’s Anti-
Corruption Foundation, wrote on Twitter Friday that the findings confirmed
the team’s report, which had said that the complex was under construction
because of failures that resulted in “billions” being thrown away.
“Mash confirmed what we wrote about repairs and mold. Thanks, of course,
but we already knew that,” Pevchikh wrote.
BSS?/AFP/BZC/1830HRS