Activists have broken into the five-story Amsterdam home of sanctioned Russian technology tycoon Arkady Volozh and say they plan to use it as a temporary shelter for students and other young individuals.
Volozh is a co-founder and former CEO of Yandex, a Moscow-based Internet giant that is sometimes referred to as the Google of Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s wide-ranging crackdown on freedom and dissent over the past two decades has swept up the nation’s Internet companies, including Yandex. Russia pressured the company to hide stories critical of the Kremlin on its popular landing page and cooperate with the nation’s security services (FSB).
The activists hung signs from the windows of Volozh’s $3.5 million home criticizing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Yandex’s ties to the FSB, and capitalism.
The European Union has placed Volozh on its sanction list and froze his assets inside the bloc after Putin launched his February invasion of Ukraine.
The activists claimed they would allow young people to reside in the building until Volozh was removed from the sanctions list. It was not immediately clear if the Amsterdam police would intervene to protect the property.
Volozh is the latest prominent Russian whose property in Europe has been vandalized. Protesters broke into the London home of billionaire Oleg Deripaska as well as a French home believed to belong to one of Putin’s daughters.
Italian media in April reported that unknown activists vandalized two villas in Italy that belong to leading pro-Kremlin propagandist Vladimir Solovyov.