Fire breaks out at Putin-supporting Russian oligarch’s Lake Como villa

Mayor suggests suspected arson was ‘a demonstrative act’

A firefighter walks by the Menaggio villa owned by Vladimir Soloviev on Wednesday (Vigili del Fuoco/Handout via REUTERS)

A fire has broken out at an Italian villa belonging to Russian state TV host Vladimir Soleviev.

The property is one of multiple Lake Como properties owned by the 58-year-old oligarch which Italian police said they had seized after he was placed on an EU sanctions list in response to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

After arriving at the villa near Menaggio at 6am, it took firefighters around two hours to extinguish the blaze, which was started using tyres and caused limited damage, a fire brigade spokesperson said.

The Carabinieri police said they were investigating the fire, which is suspected arson.

“The investigations of the Carabinieri are underway, but we can already say that the vandals did not cause significant damage,” local mayor Michele Spaggiari was quoted as saying by the Daily Beast.

“The villa is empty at the moment, with rustic walls and concrete floors. It could be it was basically treated as a demonstrative act, which fortunately did not have serious consequences.”

The two-storey building was under renovation and uninhabited, the fire service spokesperson said. CCTV footage from the villa is reportedly being analysed in the search for potential culprits.

Meanwhile, the walls of a second Lake Como home belonging to Mr Soleviev, in Pianello del Lario, were also vandalised on Tuesday night, reports in multiple Italian media outlets suggest.

Mr Soleviev is fiercely pro-Kremlin and anti-Ukraine, and according to Russian reports was among 300 journalists secretly awarded medals of the “Order of Service to the Fatherland” by Mr Putin for their “objective coverage” of events prior to the annexation of Crimea in 2014.

In recent weeks, he has used his TV programme to urge no negotiations with Kyiv until Moscow’s “boots are on their neck”, according to one translation.

In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Mr Soloviev also drew Western headlines after he used his The Evening With Vladimir Soloviev show to rage against moves to seize his Italian assets.

“I was told that Europe is a citadel of rights, that everything is permitted,” Mr Soloviev was reported as saying. “I know from personal experience about the so-called ‘sacred property rights’.

“With every transaction I was bringing paperwork demonstrating my official salary, income, I did it all. I bought it, paid crazy amount of taxes, I did everything.

“And suddenly someone makes a decision that this journalist is now on the list of sanctions. And right away it affects your real estate. Wait a minute. But you told us that Europe has sacred property rights ...is this the Iron Curtain?”

The existence of Mr Soloviev’s Italian properties was publicised by Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) over the course of multiple investigations in 2017 and 2019.

The properties in Como confiscated from Mr Soloviev are reported to be worth a total of €8m (£6.68m).

Additional reporting by Reuters