How could I possibly pass this by? I can’t. And I won’t.
Don’t pass by either—stop for a minute and let’s take a look at the wonderful “Putin Team,” founded by hockey player Alexander Ovechkin.
It really is wonderful, because it shows us very clearly which part of the Russian elite is rooting for Putin.
These are the people for whom Putin is love No. 2. Love No. 1 is a comfortable life in luxury real estate located in the United States and/or Western Europe.
I am in no way trying to say that the money of the members of “Putin Team” is dishonest or corrupt. Nor am I going to tell them how they should spend it.
Famous athletes earned large fees and have every right to buy themselves mansions in Miami and apartments in New York. No questions there.
The issue is something else: Putin Team has become a symbol of Russia’s colonial-style rule. These rich, successful guys live abroad; their families, prospects, hopes, children, and taxes are all abroad. But they are imposing on us the very same government that steals everything in sight here and makes life so much worse that neither Ovechkin nor Kovalchuk wants to live here. And they invest their money not in Volgograd or Yekaterinburg, but in Miami.
So watch the video. Help spread it around—we really need that.
And below you’ll find confirmation of all the information presented in the video.
Let’s start with the initiator—the celebrated Alexander Ovechkin.
Ovechkin declared his devotion to Putin a long time ago. Just look: T-shirts with the president’s face, phone cases, [video gre](Смешное моё интервью для главного игрового портала Канобу: https://navalny.com/p/5612/)etings. The only thing Ovechkin has loved longer than Putin is America—the country where he has lived for the past 12 years, for most of Putin’s time in power.
It was in America—more specifically in Arlington (a suburb of Washington, D.C.)—that Ovechkin first bought this house for $1.6 million.
And then this impressive mansion for $4 million.
And relatively recently, he reinforced his love for Putin and Russia by buying a 200-square-meter apartment for $2 million in Miami.
Right after Ovechkin, Ilya Kovalchuk joined Putin’s team. A great athlete. Kovalchuk moved to the United States even earlier—in 2000. But as you understand, that is no obstacle to a great and sincere feeling for President Putin.
In 2012, Kovalchuk urged people to vote for Putin from this wonderful house in Atlanta.
Or perhaps from an apartment in this high-rise in Miami, registered in his wife’s name, whom the media, incidentally, describe as a U.S. citizen.
Although there is another possibility. One month before the 2012 election, in which Kovalchuk was urging us to vote for Putin, he bought a 350-square-meter apartment right here on Fisher Island, also in Miami, for nearly $5 million.
Now watch—I’ll show you a trick. The building where the Kovalchuks’ apartment is located is marked with a red arrow in the image above. We move exactly 150 meters away.
And… we find another member of the new Putin Team—the legendary Pavel Bure. What a surprise.
Here is his apartment. It was bought for $3.6 million back in 2007.
Pavel also has another apartment in Miami, in this building, a bit more modest. Bure left Russia in the early 1990s, but later, to give him credit, he returned to Russia. He even seems to have given up his American citizenship. But he is still connected to America through at least his entire family: his brother, a U.S. citizen who lives in California and makes wine in Napa Valley—not Anapa, please—and his father, who also lives in the United States, though his passport, by his own account, is Canadian.
All right, let’s see who else was among the first to join Putin’s team. Vyacheslav Fetisov.
Fetisov played in the United States and coached American hockey teams from 1989 to 2000. But surely you don’t think that after ending his sports career he had no further ties to America? In 2009, Fetisov—or rather, his wife—became the happy owner of a penthouse in one of the Trump towers with a view of Central Park.
They bought it for $6.5 million. Now it is worth closer to $8 million.
A worthy choice for a senator from United Russia (the Kremlin-aligned ruling party) and a member of Putin’s team. Unlike his other 1,000-square-meter apartment in Moscow, Fetisov properly declared this one, but that year it disappeared from the official’s disclosure. But don’t worry, everything is fine. The penthouse was simply re-registered in the name of Fetisov’s daughter Anastasia, who permanently resides in New York.
So then, who else has managed to sign up for the team? Here’s an unexpected but very determined forward: Irina Viner.
She may not be a hockey player, but her appearance on Putin Team is entirely logical. After all, Irina Viner is the wife of none other than Alisher Usmanov, who made many of his billions of dollars precisely during the Putin years. That money, stolen from Russian taxpayers and state companies, has been turned into luxurious foreign real estate, where the Usmanov-Viner family can love Vladimir Putin in much greater comfort. This is, in general, a very valuable addition to Putin’s team. They can fly the whole team around on their private jet, Burkhan. They can take them for a cruise on the $600 million yacht Dilbar. And as for Putin Team headquarters, I suggest they set it up in Surrey, in the Tudor castle that also belongs to the Usmanov family.
Very little time has passed since Ovechkin announced recruitment for Putin Team, and I’m sure not everyone has had time to sign up yet. So I’ll allow myself a little liberty and announce an extra round of recruitment for Putin’s team. I’m going to draft a few more star players for old man Putin, especially since we at the Anti-Corruption Foundation know a couple of ideal candidates. In fact, they are all already, quite literally, on Putin’s hockey team. He plays with them. For example, from this favorite photo of mine alone, we can take two: Gennady Timchenko and Arkady Rotenberg.
Citizens of Finland, owners of countless properties there, as well as in France, Switzerland, and Italy. Old friends, well-practiced hockey players. I’m sure they should be on the team. And for company, we can take this young guy too—he’s Arkady Rotenberg’s nephew. He went with Kovalchuk to Urgant’s TV show (a popular Russian late-night program).
Honestly, I’m already getting confused by his names and citizenships, but many people will recognize him anyway—this is Roman Michael Oliver Rotenberg, a citizen of Finland and the United Kingdom.
There you have it. The perfect Putin team.
They invest their money in American real estate. They tie their future to America or Europe. They are doing well there. Their work is there. Their citizenships and residence permits are there, and that is where they pay taxes. Don’t worry about them. Their families are there, their children are there. They will attend wonderful schools and speak beautiful English.
And we are being asked to vote to preserve our own poverty. To keep the roads in ruins. To continue the collapse of healthcare.
No thanks.
If you agree with me, then
Add your signature in support.
Donate a little money to the election campaign.
We will fight for our future ourselves. Alexander Ovechkin, unfortunately, will not help us.