On the morning of Aug. 28, a wildfire broke out in the area of the village of Krinitsa, approximately ten kilometers away from Vladimir Putin’s Black Sea palace near the southern Russian city of Gelendzhik. The mayor of Gelendzhik, Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry (EMERCOM), and the Krasnodar regional crisis center confirmed the fact of the fire.
According to the authorities in Krasnodar, the blaze started “after the fall of drone debris,” presumably a reference to a downed Ukrainian UAV. By the morning of August 29, the blaze had spread to an area of 41.5 hectares.
Independent outlet Important Stories provided a more precise location of the fire, reporting that it may in fact be only 3–4 kilometers from the residence.
NASA FIRMS screenshot indicating the distance from the fire to “Putin's Palace”
The Insider, using NASA’s FIRMS fire-tracking map, noted that a second fire broke out approximately 850 meters from Putin’s Krinitsa winery. The Russian head of state’s affiliation with the winery was established thanks to the work of the late Alexey Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, which in January 2021 released a detailed investigation into Putin’s Black Sea palace and its surrounding estate. In the video, it was noted that the facility had ordered gilded Italian toilet brushes costing 700 euros.