Secret Putin home may have just been discovered

An investigative outlet on Monday shared video footage of a largely undocumented residence allegedly belonging to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Dossier Center, which is run by Russian opposition figures, published drone footage on its YouTube channel showing a luxurious estate it said belongs to Putin near Russia’s border with Finland in the northwestern Russian republic of Karelia.

Newsweek could not verify the authenticity of the Dossier Center’s report. The Kremlin was contacted via email on Monday for comment.

Putin has a number of other confirmed and unconfirmed properties. Among the confirmed residences is his Novo-Ogaryovo estate in Moscow and a summer home in Sochi known as Bocharov Ruchey. The Kremlin is also listed as an official residence for Putin, although he does not live there.

The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has said Putin owns another residence, called Valdai, that is in Russia’s Novgorod region. Imprisoned Kremlin-opposition leader Alexei Navalny said in 2021 that the president owns a home on the Black Sea coast dubbed “Putin’s Palace.” However, the BBC reported Putin has denied owning the $1 billion “palace.”

Before the new drone footage, the Karelia complex has been mostly unseen aside from unconfirmed photos, because of its hard-to-reach location on the shore of Lake Ladoga’s Marjalahti Bay. The Dossier Center said the only way to get to the property is by boat or aircraft.

The narration for the Dossier Center’s video describes a 13-foot waterfall on the bayside property, which sits approximately 18 miles from Finland, an unfriendly nation that became a member of NATO last year.

According to the video’s narrator, the residence’s fortifications include a “fence, barbed wire and around-the-clock security.” Behind one of the three main homes is also what the outlet describes as a large, raised embankment that could be used to station an air defense system.

Jürgen Nauditt, who frequently posts pro-Ukrainian content on social media, shared a clip of the Dossier Center’s video on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday.

The plot of land, measuring about 2.5 square miles, was supposed to be part of a national park, but it was instead set aside for Putin, the Dossier Center’s report said.

“There is no doubt the president relaxes here,” the Dossier Center’s narrator says in the video. “During his visits, the local security is replaced by FSO [Federal Guard Service] employees, entrances are blocked off, and neighboring islands are sealed off.”

Elsewhere, the property reportedly houses a brewery, a tea room, two helipads and yacht piers, as well as a trout farm and cows for beef production.

The Dossier Center said the property’s listed owners are companies owned by a Russian businessman who runs a “network” that deals “with the president’s leisure activities and are responsible for all of his real estate.”