An anti-corruption campaigner has said Russia is overspending on the Winter Olympics and politicians and businessmen are profiteering. <br /><br />Alexei Navalny, who has previously led anti-Putin protests, says Russia’s Olympics are already five times more expensive than the 2010 Olympics. And he is quite clear why he thinks this is. <br /><br />“Initially the whole Sochi project was conceived in a way that would not only produce the Olympic Games,” he says, “but would also enrich some small number of Putin’s close friends.”<br /><br />Navalny accuses Putin of enriching his friends by awarding them building contracts at a cost several times more than those to build similar facilities elsewhere. <br /><br />But one Sochi resident seemed unsurprised. <br /><br />“Corruption is quite possible,” he said. “This is Russia.”<br /><br />Navalny says Russia has already spent $50 billion on the games, that’s 36.5 billion Euros.<br /><br />He also contradicts claims that private companies have financed half of it claiming public funds were channeled through state-controlled companies portrayed as private. <br /><br />He says the private sector has contributed just four percent of overall costs.
