A self-described "informal alliance of anarchist activists" on Saturday occupied a mansion on the shores of Austria's Attersee lake that they say belongs to oligarch and former Russian deputy prime minister Igor Shuvalov.
"Putin's billionaire ally had already left the mansion, as he is on the sanctioned list in Austria," the activists announced in a statement showing their opposition to both the Russian president and NATO.
Some 40 people are taking part in the occupation, according to the Salzburger Nachrichten daily.
This occupation of the mansion, on the shore of Lake Attersee, is a message against the war, the properties of the millionaires, the empty houses and "any type of exploitation", the activists affirm.
"We stand in solidarity with the antimilitarist fighters of Ukraine and Russia, as well as with all the people who flee or desert, but not with the States," they affirm in that note, published on social networks.
The activists demand that the house be transformed into accommodation for "refugees, deserters and homeless people" and denounce that the war in Ukraine is the "tip of the iceberg of patriarchal structures".
The activists also denounce that the mansion is hardly used and serves only for "the entertainment of a few" and demand free access to the lake, on whose shores there are hardly any public areas.
The Salzburger Nachrichten newspaper published last March that Shuvalov, on the list of people subject to sanctions by the European Union for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, owns the mansion through a company based in Austria and a foundation in Liechtenstein.
According to that medium, the oligarch, who has also been sanctioned in the United Kingdom, Japan and the United States, moved personal belongings months ago from his residences in Austria to Moscow in a private jet.
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