In certain ways, Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin are quite similar. They’ve both spent their entire careers as public servants, and they’ve built their careers on the idea of being close to the working class.
For most of his political career, “middle-class Joe” was consistently classified as one of the poorest members of Congress. When he left the White House in 2016, his tax returns revealed a net worth of little over $1 million. Joe Biden is now worth roughly $9 million, according to his most current public financial filings, thanks to a windfall of speaking fees and book sales garnered in the years before he was elected President.
Then there’s Russian President Vladimir Putin.
If the financial statements issued by the Kremlin in August 2019 are to be believed, Vladimir Putin could be dubbed “Middle-Class Vlad.” Putin’s alleged net wealth is almost comically low.
Vladimir declared a total annual income of $135,000 in his 2019 financial statement. It then enumerated his most valuable earthly goods as follows:
In Saint Petersberg, an 830-square-foot apartment (with access to a 200-square-foot garage!)
- In Moscow, a 1,600-square-foot flat
- Two antique Russian GAZ M21 vehicles, estimated to be worth between $20 and $30,000.
- A Lada Niva SUV estimated to be worth $6,000
- A towable camper tent trailer for $900
I have no clue how much those two residences (plus the garage) are worth, but based on the assets and income recorded, Vladimir Putin’s total net worth is probably in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. And, in fact, Vladimir’s $500,000 net worth was published in 2012, two years before he and his 30-year-old wife, Lyudmila, split.
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Perhaps we shouldn’t be so dismissive of Vladimir’s limited resources. After all, he has spent his entire life working for the government.
On the other side, many intelligent people believe Vladimir Putin is secretly…
The richest person in the world.
A watch expert can comment, but based on a quick Google search, the watch Putin is wearing in the photo above appears to be a Patek Philippe Perpetual Calendar, which retails for roughly $60,000. Putin is also said to own a $500,000 Toubograph by A. Lange & Sohne.
An (Allegedly) Massive Secret Fortune
For more than a decade, rumors about Putin’s vast hidden money have been circulating in Russia.
How can one gain such a vast hidden fortune?
Critics believe that as the Soviet Union crumbled and gave way to today’s pseudo-capitalist oligarchy, Putin was well-positioned to profit personally at each stage.
One of Putin’s most significant power grabs, according to reports, occurred in July 2003, when he publicly detained Russia’s then-richest citizen, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Khodorkovsky was dragged from his private plane, handcuffed, and sent to Moscow for trial. He was valued at $15 billion at the time. He was found guilty and sentenced to 9 years in jail in May 2005. He was then accused of embezzlement and money laundering.
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Mikhail Khodorkovsky was released in December 2013 after ten years in a Siberian prison.
According to Bill Browder, a longstanding Putin critic who was expelled from Russia in 2005, after seeing what happened to Mikhail Khodorkovsky, all of Russia’s rich businessmen flew to Moscow to find out what they needed to do to avoid a similar fate.
According to Browder’s testimony to the US Senate Judiciary Committee in 2017, the strategy went like this:
“After Khodorkovsky’s conviction, the other oligarchs went to Putin and asked him what they needed to do to avoid sitting in the same cage as Khodorkovsky. From what followed, it appeared that Putin’s answer was, “Fifty percent.” He wasn’t saying 50% for the Russian government or the presidential administration of Russia, but 50% for Vladimir Putin personally.”
Browder lays it all out later in his testimony:
“Putin is one of the world’s wealthiest men. Over the course of his 17 years in power, I believe that he has amassed $200 billion in ill-gotten riches from these types of enterprises.”
Let me say that number again.
Bill Browder estimates Vladimir Putin’s personal worth at:
$200 billion
That would make him the world’s wealthiest person today, surpassing Jeff Bezos by $4 billion.
Putin is worth at least $70 billion, according to Stanislav Belkovsky, a former Russian government advisor. Putin, according to Belkovsky, has $40 billion stored in Switzerland and Liechtenstein, in addition to owning 37 percent and 4.5 percent of the two largest Russian oil corporations, Surgutneftegaz and Gazprom, respectively.
Putin has refuted allegations that he is wealthy. The Kremlin has previously described billion-dollar estimates of Putin’s fortune as “pure nonsense that doesn’t even require a response” when speaking on his behalf.
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A Palace Worth $1.4 Billion
Russian activists flew a drone above the property depicted above in January, which has long been suspected of being Putin’s secret palace. The 190,000 square-foot estate, which sits on a 170-acre clifftop above the Black Sea, is unbelievably luxurious.
The property includes a 27,000 square-foot guest house, amphitheater, professional-caliber ice hockey rink, a Vegas-style casino, nightclub with stripper poles, and an underground tasting area overlooking the water, and is said to be Russia’s largest private mansion. At the vineyards on the property, classical music is played 24 hours a day. There are $850 Italian toilet brushes and $1,250 toilet paper holders in the bathrooms.
The palace cost $1.4 billion to build, according to data uncovered by campaigners.
The activists shared the following drone video:
After the above video received more than 100 million views in just a few days, the Kremlin disputed accusations about Putin’s riches once more:
“This isn’t correct. There is no palace, and he is not a palace owner. Those are all hearsay, and there were some disagreements between the property owners, but they have nothing to do with President Putin.”
So, how much money does Vladimir Putin have? It’s difficult to say definitively, to be honest. The $200 billion fortune camp is certainly emitting a lot of smoke.
Putin’s denials might almost be taken more seriously if he acknowledged having a smaller fortune, perhaps $100 million. If he just came out and said, “Yes, I have an ill-gotten $100 million wealth, but all this stuff about $200 billion is bullshit,” he’d be more credible. It would be more convincing.
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With the following anecdote, we’ll leave it to Vladimir to put an end to speculations about his fortune.
Putin once told a journalist:
“I am the wealthiest man, not just in Europe but in the whole world: I collect emotions. I am wealthy in that the people of Russia have twice entrusted me with the leadership of a great nation such as Russia. I believe that is my greatest wealth.”