Two activists have allegedly stormed a luxury villa belonging to Vladimir Putin’s former son-in-law and declared it a shelter for Ukrainian refugees.
Pierre Haffner and Sergey Saveliev are accused of breaking into the eight-bedroom seaside residence in the French coastal resort of Biarritz, which is popular with Russian oligarchs.
They announced on social media that they had changed the locks before being arrested by police, reports say.
Kirill Shamalov, 39, the ex-husband of the Russian president’s second daughter Katerina Tikhonova, 35, is believed to be the owner.
A photo shows a blue and yellow Ukrainian flag being waved by a man on a balcony attached to the home that demonstrators called ‘Putin’s palace’.
YouTube footage uploaded by yesterday by Haffner shows a man walking through the late 19th-century villa overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.
The video appears to suggest Ukrainian and Russian citizens will unite to free Russia from Putin, whose troops have bombed hospitals and killed children.
It starts with a cry of ‘Slava Ukraini’ – Glory to Ukraine’ – before adding ‘Russia will be free’.
A man in the video said: ‘This house was bought with money stolen by Putin, by his mafia, from the Russian people and the peoples oppressed by Putin’s Russia.’
Inside, the two activists found a copy of a passport belonging to Mr Shamalov, Independent Russian media outlet The Insider says.
Mr Shamalov, thought to be Russia’s youngest billionaire, was one of the oligarchs sanctioned by the UK last month.
The director and part-owner of Sibur, a Russian petrochemicals company, was married to Tikhonova for five years.
Haffner describes himself as a ‘Russian blogger’ exiled to France ‘since 2017’ and as a ‘Russophile’.
His lawyer said he was accused of trespassing on private property, but added she had not had the chance to speak to him.
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