The Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) obtained detailed documents on the construction of Putin’s new palace in Crimea, which includes a fully equipped personal hospital for the Russian leader. The site sits on Cape Aya atop a cliff and was originally built as a dacha for former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.
After Russia’s occupation of Crimea, the buildings were deemed illegal and ordered demolished, but that never happened.
Technical documents show a significant portion of the first floor of the two-story building is devoted to a medical suite. It includes a doctor’s office with an ultrasound machine, a dental clinic with equipment worth millions of rubles, a pre-op room and a full operating theater with ventilators, defibrillators, anesthesia machines, and equipment for gastroscopy and colonoscopy.
Separate rooms are set aside for sterilization, medical-waste storage, and oxygen concentrators. This is not a first-aid station but a full-scale clinic designed to provide emergency care at any moment.
The rest of the floor is a spa area: plunge pools, a Vichy shower, and a cryochamber. The second floor houses bedrooms and a living room; the bedrooms are fitted with medical-grade air recirculators similar to those used in hospitals. The same devices are installed in Putin’s office and his Kremlin apartment.
According to the documents, interior design was carried out to meet Federal Protective Service (FSO) requirements. The palace is registered through a chain of companies with undisclosed owners linked to Putin’s inner circle.
FBK estimates the palace cost about 10 billion rubles—money that could have built dozens of district hospitals or saved existing ones. Instead, it amounts to a personal intensive-care setup for one person.
Meanwhile, regions across Russia are shutting medical facilities, hospitals face staffing shortages, and patients complain about unsafe buildings and a lack of basic necessities, including proper toilets and heating.
As the investigative outlet Proekt previously reported, Putin is accompanied on trips by a medical team of up to nine doctors, and an ambulance is almost always in his motorcade. Previous reports have suggested the presence of oncological illnesses.
