these embarrassing corruption cases for Vladimir Putin which were revealed by the Russian opponent

Sumptuous palaces, yachts, bribes… For nearly 20 years, Alexei Navalny denounced scandals linked to the corruption of Russian political and economic elites.

He had made the fight against corruption his main fight. Alexeï Navalny, number one opponent of Vladimir Putin, died at the age of 47 in a penal colony in the Arctic on Friday February 16. He was serving a 19-year prison sentence there for “extremism”.

The trained lawyer was known for revealing the extent of the corruption plaguing the country and the Russian elites, through well-documented investigations published on social networks. The one for whom Vladimir Putin’s United Russia formation was the “left crooks and thieves” had begun in 2007 to denounce the excesses of the government. He notably created the participatory platform Rospil (a term which means “looting of Russia”) in 2010, to denounce cases of misappropriation of public property and corruption, then in 2011 the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), whose activity had ceased ten years later. Franceinfo looks back on five corruption cases denounced by Alexeï Navalny.

Transneft, the affair that made Alexeï Navalny known

In 2010, the Russian activist was at the start of his anti-corruption crusade. He is putting himself “to buy shares in the country’s large semi-state companies, and to hold them to account”economist Sergei Gouriev told RFI in 2021. Supporting documents, Alexeï Navalny thus accuses Transneft, a giant of the Russian oil industry headed by a former colleague of Vladimir Putin at the KGB, of having enriched itself by more than 3 billion euros, during the construction of a gigantic oil pipeline linking the Siberia to the Pacific Ocean.

This affair was revealed on his personal blog, created four years earlier. “His site served as a springboard for him to establish himself in the opposition landscape”, explained in 2021 Carole Grimaud Potter, professor of Russian geopolitics at the University of Montpellier. As for the Transneft affair, it allows it to make itself known in Russia and abroad.

Dmitri Medvedev’s real estate empire

In March 2017, the activist went on the offensive against Vladimir Putin’s Prime Minister, Dmitri Medvedev. Temporality is not linked to chance: Alexeï Navalny wishes to run for the 2018 presidential election. In the documentary published on YouTube, Don’t call him Dimon (reference to the diminutive of the first name Dmitri), the Prime Minister’s real estate assets are exposed. The video from the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) now has 46 million views.

Dmitri Medvedev is accused of being at the head of a system of charitable foundations funded by oligarchs and banks under state control, but whose final destination would be his own personal enrichment. Massive demonstrations followed. Activists sometimes brandish ducks, in reference to a miniature house that would have ducks in one of the residences wealthy Medvedev. The Prime Minister “had denied the accusations, but had to keep a low profile after these revelations”, recalled Cécile Vaissié, professor at the University of Rennes, to franceinfo in May.

“Putin’s Palace”

Does the Russian president have a sumptuous villa on the shores of the Black Sea, on land 39 times the size of Monaco? This is what Alexeï Navalny says in the documentary A Palace for Putin: The Story of the Biggest Bribe, published on YouTube on January 19, 2021, two days after the opponent’s arrest at Moscow airport. The video, which breaks records views (nearly 130 million to date), presents previously unpublished photographs and 3D visualizations of the palace, and supports, via contracts, banking documents and testimonialsthat Vladimir Putin is the owner.

The villa, with an estimated value of just over 1 billion euros, would be equipped with a casino, a theater, and an ice hockey arena. All built on FSB land, Russian intelligence. Among the striking details of the film is the supposed cost of toilet brushes: 700 euros, according to Alexeï Navalny. During the demonstrations on January 23, many among the tens of thousands of participants brandished the object, AFP reported.

Vladimir Putin must intervene himself to defend himself. “I have not seen this film, due to lack of time (…) Nothing that is shown in it as being my property belongs to me or to my loved ones”he said on January 25.

In 2014, Reuters revealed in an investigation that this palace had been financed in part by taxpayers’ money, from funds raised as part of a program to improve Russian health facilities.

According to Alexeï Navalny, the building was paid for by people close to Vladimir Putin, such as the boss of the oil giant Rosneft Igor Sechin and the businessman Gennady Timchenko. “It is a state within Russia. And, in this state, there is only one irremovable tsar. Putin”, estimates the Russian opponent, cited by AFP. He accuses the Russian president of being “obsessed with wealth and luxury”.

Gazprom, a “monster of corruption”

In June 2022, Navalny’s foundation and investigative journalists from Proekt Media broadcast a documentary targeting Alexei Miller, wealthy executive of the gas giant Gazprom and long-time friend of the Russian president. “Gazprom is not only a gas monopolist. It is also a specially cultivated monster of corruption on which Putin’s power rests”support in the video Maria Pevchikh and Georgy Alburov, the two main investigators of FBK, cited by Release.

The Russian President “made it a bottomless wallet from which you can withdraw money, whether for palaces and entertainment, or even for war”, say the journalists. Alexei Miller is accused of having embezzled billions from the company in order to enrich “Putin’s friends and family”.

Vladimir Putin and his yachts

Vladimir Putin is a big fan of yachts, according to the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK). The organization’s investigation is looking into the Gracefully, 82 meter long boat worth 100 million euros. While its construction is still unfinished in Hamburg (Germany), its immediate repatriation to Russia is ordered in January 2022. This return occurs one month before the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, following which several Russian assets were frozen or seized by Western countries. Since then, the boat has been renamed and refitted according to Forbes.

Another luxury yacht, the Scheherazade, was seized in Italy in May 2022 as part of European sanctions against Russian oligarchs. Its price is estimated at 700 million euros. Its official owner is Eduard Khudaynatov, former boss of the oil giant Rosneft and close to the Kremlin. But according to FBK, its real owner is none other than Vladimir Putin. The yacht trackers of the Dossier center site, linked to the opponent Mikhail Khodorkovsky, even assure that it is a Christmas gift offered to the Russian president in 2014 by a handful of grateful oligarchs.