Russia built 255 flats in Kensington London in 2006 for £8m. Putin stands to make hundreds of millions of pounds. It seems that a banker from Moscow who was convicted of corruption is involved in this
Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to make hundreds of millions of pounds from a luxury development in an exclusive area of London. Russia is renovating 255 apartments on a site in Kensington that it bought in 2006 for £8m through an offshore company. The Mail on Sunday newspaper reports that from documents received by the newspaper it appears that all “the remaining surplus will go to the Kremlin”.
Putin set to make a fortune from 255 luxury London flats https://t.co/tRTKkv86Bg
— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) October 2, 2022
The newspaper published that a banker from Moscow who was convicted of corruption, was apparently closely involved in the development. Elena Kotova was one of those who gave approvals for the development. She lost her job at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) after being convicted of corruption for soliciting a £1m bribe in Moscow in 2014.
Britain’s National Crime Agency also concluded that Kotoba solicited bribes for projects at the EBRD from 2005 to 2011 and forfeited her London flat worth £1.5 million as well as £230,000 in cash.
Land registry documents show the Russian Foreign Ministry and a state-owned bank bought the development land at 245 Warwick Street, Kensington. Since 2008, numerous planning applications have been submitted for the site, which Kensington and Chelsea Council approved in 2012.
Based on similar deals, the Kremlin is set to turn its £8 million investment into hundreds of millions of pounds. The news that Moscow is profiting from UK property while waging war in Ukraine will inevitably cause dismay in Britain and Ukraine. This year, oligarchs with close ties to President Putin have been hit by sanctions.