An investigation has been opened for “home invasion” after two men broke into a villa in Biarritz belonging to the former son-in-law of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Two men were in police custody on Monday for breaking into a villa in Biarritz belonging to the former son-in-law of Russian President Vladimir Putin, in which they unfurled the Ukrainian flag, said the Bayonne prosecutor’s office. An investigation has been opened for “home invasion”, according to the source.
A local Russophile activist Pierre Haffner, also known to be a “yellow vest”, and a man presenting himself as an opponent of Vladimir Putin’s regime, entered “in the last 48 hours” the Alta Mira villa, whose owner is Kirill Chamalov, according to a source familiar with the matter.
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The businessman is presented by the international media as the former son-in-law of the Russian president, after his marriage to Katerina Tikhonova, younger brother of Mr. Putin. In a video that the activist posted on YouTube, we see one of the two men wandering around the huge residence built on the side of the cliff under Napoleon III and having a breathtaking view of the ocean. “This house was bought with money stolen by Putin, by his mafia, from the Russian people and from the peoples oppressed by Putin’s Russia,” he said in the comments.
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A Ukrainian flag on one of the two terraces of the villa
In another video, also posted on YouTube, the second man in question waves the Ukrainian flag on one of the two terraces of the villa, the film bearing subtitles such as “victory in Biarritz. Taking of Putin’s palace or “the People’s House is ready to welcome refugees from the Putin regime”.
At the end of February, the exterior of a property in Anglet, near Biarritz, belonging to a civil real estate company in the names of the ex-wife of Russian President Lyoudmila and her husband, Russian businessman Arthur Ocheretny, had been degraded.
Messages “Fuck Poutine” had been spray-painted in blue on the gates and the perimeter wall of Villa Suzanna, an Art Deco-style residence, also built facing the ocean.
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