The secret network of tunnels under ‘paranoid’ Vladimir Putin’s bunker in the Black Sea

Russian president Vladimir Putin has a secret network of underground tunnels that run beneath his palace hideaway by the Black Sea, unearthed plans recommend.

Mr Putin had an enormous underground bunker constructed beneath Gelendzhik Palace, in keeping with plans posted on-line by the engineering agency in cost of the mission, with a network of tunnels mendacity round 50 metres under the floor.

The advanced, first reported by Business Insider, is believed to have been constructed for defense in the occasion of a revolution or battle and was constructed earlier than Russia took over Crimea in 2014.

The £1bn palace is positioned on a verge overlooking the sea and takes up a 190,000 square-foot space. It even has its personal church, ice rink, on line casino and hookah lounge.

The labyrinth of hidden tunnels was revealed by jailed Russian opposition determine Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, after the defunct Russian development agency Metro Style posted the diagrams on its website in the early 2010s to point out off their work.

The bunkers seem to have a air flow system, sewerage and a contemporary water provide, whereas the partitions are 15-inch concrete shells, as proven in the diagrams.

There can be an elevator shaft that connects the advanced to the two tunnels, as revealed in one diagram – and the decrease one has a walkway to the seaside, in addition to cable racks that may very well be used to carry electrical energy, lighting and fibre-optic cables to a command publish.

Meanwhile, exits from each tunnels might be seen on the cliff face rising up from the sea to the palace.

“This tunnel set-up has all kinds of safety and security,” stated Thaddeus Gabryszewski, who’s a structural engineer conversant in defensive constructions and reviewed the diagrams for Business Insider. “There’s a fire system. There’s water, there’s a sewer. This is intended for someone to survive or escape.”

The engineering firm described the mission as an “underground complex for a resort” in Gelendzhik, the city closest to the Russian president’s palace, and it stretches throughout 6,500 sq. toes.

Speaking to Business Insider, Michael C Kimmage, who’s a former State Department official and labored on Russia and Ukraine coverage, stated: “Putin has rather a lot of nervousness about being the not-entirely-legitimate chief of Russia.

“So figuring out that his legitimacy is just not totally secured by-elections, he’s going to hunt to maximise his private security via a posh of well-defended private residences.”

The diagrams had been taken down from Metro Style’s web site in 2016, however they had been nonetheless seen on the Wayback Machine, which is an archive of on-line content material.

Then they had been circulated in a group of so-called ”diggers”, that are a gaggle of Russian residents who go to and doc forbidden websites.

An nameless digger who stated he was half of a gaggle referred to as “Sect Z” informed Business Insider that he was sharing the photos “because we are tired of Putin’s stupid face and want to show his paranoid underground transport”.

Last month, a safety officer for Mr Putin defected and referred to as the Russian president a “paranoid war criminal”.

Gleb Karakulov, 35, who served as an engineer in the Federal Guard Service (FSO) presidential communications unit, claimed final month that Mr Putin opts to remain “in his bunker” reasonably than make journeys as a result of he’s so paranoid about an assassination try.

The Russian president additionally allegedly travels with a 2.5 metre excessive field to forestall his secret talks from leaking and Western bugging.

Mr Karakulov claimed that the Russian president is isolating for a fourth 12 months in a row, out of worry of changing into contaminated with Covid-19, and workers can solely work in the similar room as him as soon as they’ve been in isolation for 2 weeks.

Mr Putin doesn’t use a cell phone or the web, which means his information of occasions is filtered through the secret companies – and what he watches on state-controlled Russian TV, in keeping with Mr Karakulov.

Speaking about the battle in Ukraine, Mr Karakulov issued an enchantment to officers to come back ahead with proof about Mr Putin as a “war criminal,” saying the battle is “beyond the pale” and “defies reason”.

When the organisation of opposition chief Mr Navalny initially revealed an expose of the Russian president’s Black Sea palace in 2021, hundreds of Russians protested, holding up gold-painted bathroom brushes in reference to a £700 utensil allegedly discovered in the residence.

Mr Putin has denied proudly owning the palace. Meanwhile, his billionaire childhood buddy claimed that the property belonged to him not the president, who he stated had nothing to do with it.

But the palace, which is surrounded by 17,000 acres of woods, is continually protected by Mr Putin’s safety crew and guarded by a no-fly zone – and the Kremlin failed to elucidate why this was the case if the president doesn’t reside there.