Russian president Vladimir Putin has been unveiled as the 'secret' owner of a Swedish-speaking seaside plot on the coast of Finland, a news report said Tuesday.
Jarmo Ratia, the former director of Finland's National Land Survey, said Putin owned a 17,800-square-meter plot in the Åland Islands, a Swedish-speaking archipelago to the south-east of Finland, The Local news site reported.
Speaking Monday at a gathering of war veterans, Ratia said the land had been handed over to Russia's Foreign Ministry in 2009, in accordance with a 1947 post-war peace treaty that saw German holdings in Finland transferred to the Soviet Union.
Ratia told the veterans he was disclosing the information because "the situation in Europe has changed decisively," the report said, referring to Russia's involvement in Ukraine and its military activity in the Baltic.
Spokesperson for the Finnish Embassy in Stockholm, Niina Hyrsky, told The Local that while news of the island was an interesting story, "it is not forbidden for foreigners to own land in Finland."
It could not immediately be confirmed whether Putin is in fact the owner of the seaside plot on the island of Saltvik, which has a population of little more than 1,800, according to the most recent Finnish census.
Putin has repeatedly been rumored to be in possession of luxurious properties and a vast fortune, but the Kremlin has always denied the reports.