A group of squatters have taken up residence in a house in Amsterdam that belongs to Yandex founder Arkady Volozh, they told the publishing network IndyMedia.
The house’s new inhabitants said that they chose it intentionally, because despite the sanctions imposed against Volozh, the Dutch authorities have not seized his property. “It’s obvious that limiting [the rights of] Russian billionaires and oligarchs is not a priority for the Dutch authorities,” said the squatters. According to the Dutch outlet NRC, they first occupied the house on October 27.
The squatters also said that in the Netherlands, the rights of billionaires are better protected than the rights of regular people, claiming that about 9,000 properties in the country officially belong to offshore companies. “It’s clear that the city doesn’t have a housing shortage — it has a surplus of rich people.”
This isn’t the first time squatters have taken over the property of Russian businessmen and elites. In March, activists seized a mansion belonging to Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska in London. That same money, another activist broke in to a villa tied to Katerina Tikhonova, the alleged daughter of Vladimir Putin.
Volozh himself was sanctioned by the EU in early June. He currently lives in Tel Aviv.
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