A video published by the Russian opposition website “Proekt” alleges that Russian President Vladimir Putin has demolished his palatial Black Sea holiday villa which has been put down to his growing fear of Ukrainian drone attacks.
The Proekt commentary says “He [Putin] has stopped flying to Sochi out of fear for his own life. The president fears drone attacks. The site of the dacha is now a pit.”
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Satellite images included in the video support that contention as they show a gaping hole in the ground where the building once stood, and the once-manicured grounds look overgrown and neglected.
Satellite images of the “before” and “after” views of Bocharov Ruchey palace.
In the past few years, Putin frequently visited the Stalin-era palace which had been modernized and fitted out in extravagant style– a combination of luxury accommodation, where he could relax, impressive meeting rooms to host guests, and a suite of offices from where he could remotely conduct his affairs.
Visitors he has hosted at the villa have included US President George Bush, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, UK Prime Minister David Cameron, Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko, and head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi.
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It is even claimed that an exact duplicate of the dictator’s Kremlin office had been constructed in Bocharov and others of his holiday homes to give the impression during the Covid pandemic that he was still in Moscow and that he continued the subterfuge in the following years.
Before this year, it is said that he spent almost 40 days a year in the villa, hosting important foreign visitors or celebrating holidays and birthdays with his lover, former Russian Olympic gymnast Alina Kabaeva.
Proekt quoted a source said to be close to Putin who said, “Putin last flew to Sochi seven months ago. He even broke a long-standing tradition of coming to Sochi to celebrate Alina’s birthday in May.”
Reports say that Putin has similarly abandoned his other $1.2 billion private clifftop retreat in Gelendzhik, 170 kilometers (105 miles) northwest of Bocharov in the Krasnodar Krai region – an even more sumptuous purpose-built palace said to contain a cinema, casino, night club, and hookah bar. It conceals a 16-story underground network of tunnels and bunkers, some of which lead to a private beach below that can also act as a hidden “emergency exit.”
There are suggestions that the villa has been leveled in preparation for a rebuild and that Putin is using the war as an excuse to replace the current palace which had been built on the orders of the former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev who Putin blames for the “loss” of Crimea to Ukraine.
Any new development would undoubtedly incorporate bunkers to ensure that Putin, whose paranoid fear of potential assassination since the start of the war with Ukraine has grown significantly. According to other sources close to the Kremlin, he prefers to travel using an armored train, only flying when there is no other option.
Proekt also said that the destruction of the Bocharov Ruchey residence had been kept secret because it like many of the villas Putin uses is in historically or ecologically protected areas.
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