An apartment in Yalta, occupied Crimea, owned by the family of President Volodymyr Zelensky, was auctioned off by Russian proxies after being seized by the occupying authorities, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Crimean service reported on Oct. 30.
A Russian woman from Moscow bought the apartment for more than 44 million rubles ($477,000).
Russian state-run media Ria Novosti reported on the sale, claiming that the apartment was Zelensky's. However, it is officially owned by First Lady Olena Zelenska.
Russian proxies in Crimea announced in February 2023 that hundreds of high-value pieces of Ukrainian-owned real estate on the occupied peninsula would be "nationalized."
Sergey Aksyonov, the Russian-installed head of occupied Crimea, added in September that real estate "belonging to foreigners who committed unfriendly actions towards Russia" would be sold.
After the sale was announced, Vladimir Konstantinov, a Russian proxy official in Crimea, said that the new owner of Zelenska's apartment would be "offered" an opportunity to create a “museum of the fight against Nazism” in the space, RFE/RL's Crimean service reported.
Russia has been spreading a false propaganda narrative about the widespread Nazism in Ukraine for years and used it as one of the pretexts to launch a full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022.
Zelensky, who is Jewish, has said that some of his family members were killed during World War II.
Russian forces and their proxies in Crimea have also seized churches belonging to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine on the peninsula.
Lucy Minicozzi-Wheeland
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