Putin's secret empire: Unraveling the trillion-dollar legacy

According to "Fakt", Vladimir Putin officially owns an apartment in St. Petersburg, several cars, and savings worth over half a million dollars (720 thousand Canadian dollars). However, the real value of his wealth could be significantly higher. Sir Bill Browder, a known critic of the Kremlin, estimates that Putin's wealth may reach one trillion dollars (1.5 trillion Canadian dollars).

The newspaper reports that Putin earned 67.6 million rubles (about 1.15 million Canadian dollars) in the period from 2017 to 2022.

But the greatest controversy surrounds the so-called "Putin's Palace" on the Black Sea, which is estimated to be worth 1.4 billion dollars (2 billion Canadian dollars). The palace was reported by the Anti-Corruption Foundation founded by Alexei Navalny.

Vladimir Putin himself denied the information from Navalny's foundation.

The authors of the report assessed that the construction of the structure, with an area of nearly 18,000 square metres, was financed by Russian state-owned and private companies associated with the Russian dictator's friends. The material at the time featured Navalny himself, who called Putin "the richest man in the world."

This was also the opinion of the Dutch newspaper "De Telegraaf." "Yachts, palaces, planes, and shady private companies - Putin is most likely the richest person in the world," the newspaper wrote in September 2023. The largest newspaper in the Netherlands recalled, among other things, the Panama Papers documents from 2016, which indicated that the Russian leader has, among other things, 2 billion dollars (2.9 billion Canadian dollars) hidden through an extensive network of companies.

According to a report by economists from the "Harvard Political Review," Putin developed a system in which his wealth is distributed among a group of his close associates.

The late opposition leader Boris Nemtsov (murdered in 2015) noted that the head of state owns 43 airplanes and helicopters.

One of the aircraft reportedly features a cabin worth 2.8 million dollars (4 million Canadian dollars) embellished by jewelers, as well as a luxury toilet worth nearly 37,500 Canadian dollars. Besides this, he reportedly also owns around 700 cars and several luxury yachts, such as the "Graceful," a 82-metre vessel worth about 135 million Canadian dollars, or the attributed "Scheherazade" - one of the largest yachts in the world.