'Oligarch Wives' Reveal 'Little-Man' Vladimir Putin Is Gravely Ill Amid Death Threats To Their Families

A group of women who are married or romantically involved with oligarchs in Russia made claims regarding the country's President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, as a documentary about their lives is finally released to the public.

“Secrets of the Oligarch Wives,” a new documentary that is releasing on Paramount+ on Tuesday, details the lives of the wives and romantic partners of the former oligarchs in Putin’s circle while charting the rise and dictatorial tendencies of Vladimir Putin, according to the Daily Beast.

One of the wives is Tatiana Fokina, a woman married to Russian cellphone oligarch Evgeny Chichvarkin, who created Euroset, one of the biggest mobile providers in Russia, and which gave him an estimated net worth of $1.5 billion, Yahoo! News reported.

Fokina didn’t meet Chichvarkin until he had left Russia when Putin had attempted to prosecute him and take over his fortune. In spite of that, Fokina regaled the documentary crew with stories about Putin’s pettiness and even claimed that Putin was willing to do whatever it takes to get what he wants because he was seriously ill.

“Whenever you make a contract with the devil, there will be consequences … if you deal with the dark side, it will come to haunt you later,” Fokina said. “Going to Russia now would be suicide for me.”

Meanwhile, Countess Alexandra Tolstoy, who is a distant relative of esteemed author Leo Tolstoy, found herself romantically linked with oligarch Sergei Pugachev. Pugachev, who is worth $2 billion, reportedly courted Tolstoy with glamorous yachts and ritzy palaces until he was forced to flee to France.

Both agreed to be featured in the documentary in spite of the potential repercussions that it may have in being able to return to Russia in the future. They speak in the documentary about his “nastiness, little-man complex, and brutality.”

Putin’s rise to power is documented in the film, with the two women claiming that Putin was reportedly jealous of the oligarchs’ lifestyles, becoming a sort of head mafia boss to the oligarchs and demanding cuts to their profits in exchange for their continued existence.

“There is no difference between Russian organized crime and the Russian government. The Russian government is effectively an organized crime organization and Vladimir Putin is the mafia boss,” Putin critic Bill Browder said.