Kremlin spokesman dismisses ‘Putin’s Palace’ investigation and warns against donating to Navalny’s non-profit

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has dismissed the Anti-Corruption Foundation’s investigation on Vladimir Putin’s Black Sea “palace” as an attempt to dig up old rumors, while at the same time denying that such a property exists at all.

In conversation with journalists on Wednesday, January 20, Peskov gave the following comment:

In this case, the president is being imputed for ownership of a property that doesn’t exist. All of the president of Russia’s property is declared by him annually and stated by him in a declaration also published annually. This material from yesterday — there’s nothing new presented there. You know that this topic was thrown around three or four years ago. And in fact, in this case here, it’s the same conversation. They’ve already tried to use these insinuations repeatedly. And often without even burdening themselves with some at least minimal attempts to somehow prove something, [or] at least to illustrate it. Perhaps the only novelty is that they’ve used such edited stories here. There in the pool in some palace is a pieced-in shot of Putin, who’s swimming in the Yenisei. Shots that — when Putin swam in the Yenisei — went around the world.

Putin’s spokesman also said that all such materials are a “scam” created by “crooks” aimed at taking money from the population.

At the end of this marvelous material there’s an account number with a request to transfer money there. It seems to me that this is probably the main task of materials like this and similar pseudo-investigations. This too is mainly a scam. And we warn all citizens, especially given such a large number of views: think before transferring money to these, for all intents and purposes, crooks. Because these crooks are constantly improving their methods for withdrawing money from the population. Think long and hard.

These are all absolutely unfounded statements. This is pure nonsense and patchwork, and there’s nothing else there.

• On January 19, Alexey Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation published a lengthy report (and a two-hour video) about a $1.35-billion residence built for Russian President Vladimir Putin on the Black Sea. Reports about this property first emerged in 2010.
• According to the investigation, the construction of the palace was financed through a corruption scheme linked to state-controlled and private companies associated with members of Putin’s inner circle.
• The video version of the investigation rocketed to first place on Russian YouTube and was viewed more than 25 million times in 24 hours following its release.