Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied allegations by the poisoned Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny that he owns a lavish billion-dollar palace built with fraudulent funds.
The dissident claimed in a video watched by about 86 million people last week that Putin’s allies, including oil chiefs and billionaires, paid for the construction of the $ 1.35 billion Black Sea Palace.
It is said to have a casino, skating rink and vineyard.
“Nothing listed there as my property belongs to me or my next of kin, and never did,” Putin told students during a video conference on Monday.
The strongman calls the video a “compilation and assembly” and says he finds it “boring”.
Putin, who was interviewed by student Danil Chemezov, 20, during an event marking Student Day, admitted that he did not see the entire video due to a ‘lack of time’, but that he was ‘through the video choices’. browsed what my assistants brought me, ”according to East2West News.
His denial came when two guards were fired from the Kremlin after attending a major protest against him, the office reported.
According to BAZA’s online media, Mikhail and Maksim Terekhov, 21-year-old twins, served in a unit of the Federal Security Service, which is under Putin’s command.
The brothers went to Pushkin Square in Moscow on Saturday and then had a fight, with Mikhail leaving after saying it was ‘dangerous’ to stay there.
His brother, who was left behind, has been arrested and is expected to appear in court according to the delivery.
Both men were notified that they had been fired, the report said.
Meanwhile, Putin said no minors should take part in pro-Navalny protests, adding that police should also act within the law, Reuters reported.
No one should seek to advance “their ambitious goals and objectives, especially in politics,” through protest, he said in an apparent reference to Navalny.
The dissident was arrested on January 17 after flying home for the first time since being poisoned last summer.
His detention has been ordered by the Moscow prison service in connection with alleged violations of a suspended prison sentence in a case of embezzlement which he insists has been detected.
Navalny fell into a coma on August 20 while on a domestic flight from Siberia to Moscow. Two days later, he was transferred from a hospital in Siberia to one in Berlin.