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| Russian President Vladimir Putin. © AFP=News1 |
Russian President Vladimir Putin denied that the “Putin secret palace video” exposed by dissident politician Alexey Navalni was completely untrue.
According to Reuters, President Putin insisted on a video conference with students on the 25th, referring to the palace in the Navalni video as a’boring movie’ and’brainwashing’.
“I haven’t seen the video myself, but the picture I’m swimming in is fake. The palace isn’t my or my family’s,” he said. “I’ve never done such a business.”
Navalni released a 112-minute video and report on YouTube on the 19th, two days after his arrest. The video includes a floor plan of an extravagant palace under construction near Gelendzhik, a resort city on the Black Sea coast. It recorded more than 86.43 million views in a week until the 25th after the video was released.
The video was reportedly recorded while Navalni was in Germany. Navalni was attacked by a Russian intelligence agency in August last year and was treated in Germany for five months. He returned home on the 17th, but was immediately arrested and currently in a Moscow prison.
President Putin accused the protests calling for the release of Navalni last weekend as “illegal and dangerous,” and said, “minors should not attend street protests.”
“No one should do anything illegal for his political interests,” he said. He indirectly accused the Russian opposition and Western countries of the protests.
On the 23rd, massive protests were held in more than 60 cities across Russia calling for the release of dissident politician Navalni. Russian police extinguished the protests with clubs, and in the process, more than 3,000 people were arrested by the police.