I would like you to meet Polina Kovaleva. Polina is a 26-year-old glamorous Russian girl from London🇬🇧. She lives in a huge apartment in Kensington and loves to party, her instagram feed looks like a non-stop holiday. That’s not unheard of, but there is one small detail…(THREAD)
Polina is the stepdaughter of Russia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov. Yes, THAT Lavrov. He is one of Putin's closest allies, his loyal talking head full of hot air and now also a war criminal.
Putin’s cronies often have two families at the same time. Putin himself, while being married to Ludmila Putina, had a second family with former gymnast Alina Kabaeva. Minister of Defence Shoigu had two wives and two sets of children simultaneously. And Lavrov is no different.
Lavrov has had the ‘official’ wife for the past 50 years. No one has heard of her or seen them together in public in ages, though. As opposed to this lady, Svetlana Polyakova. She is the actual wife, they have been together since the early 2000s.
Unlike Lavrov's official wife, that woman is loaded. She bought an apartment in Moscow worth $6-8m. In the picture below you can see Svetlana’s car collection. Not bad for an unemployed lady.
Svetlana also accompanies Lavrov on every official foreign affairs trip. Sometimes she even takes her 78 y.o. mother and her niece. The whole family are listed as members of the diplomatic mission. We found out that Polyakova has used the MFA plane more than 60 times.
Our glamorous Londoner Polina is her daughter from a previous marriage. Here are the pictures that Polina took at her mom’s house in Moscow. There are portraits of Lavrov on the table, very cute. On the third shot you can see Lavrov himself in the flesh.
Polina’s mom and Lavrov have been together for around two decades now. Polina’s biological dad isn’t super rich. She doesn’t have an oligarch husband. But at the age of 21, she bought this apartment in London on Kensington High Street for £4.4m.
She paid cash. No mortgage. £4.4m. Can anyone explain how this is possible? Her only source of money is her unemployed mother who happens to be Lavrov’s informal wife. This is the textbook example of unexplained wealth. The property can be legally seized right now.
Lavrov accused the UK of using chemical weapons TWICE. First time he claimed that the UK staged the Salisbury poisoning. And more recently he publicly accused me of poisoning my boss, @navalny, with Novichok at the request of the UK secret services, which he claims I work for.
Lavrov gave numerous speeches about the evil anglo-saxon world and the awful liberal western countries who want to destroy Russia and Ukraine. So why on Earth does his step-daughter live in the centre of London? Why not in Crimea or Donbass, why doesn’t she move there?
Polina and her mom must get sanctioned. Polina has to pack her Louis Vuitton suitcases, say goodbye to her British life and leave the UK. Should she not be able to explain where she got the £4.4m from, her property must be arrested under the Unexplained Wealth Order procedure.
Here is the list of the Lavrov family members who should never be allowed to set foot on the UK soil ever again:
Polina Kovaleva 04.06.1995
Svetlana Polyakova 28.11.1970
Tamara Polyakova 01.05.1948
Valeria Polyakova 09.08.2003
Sergey Lavrov 21.03.1950
You can find a much more detailed version of this story in our video (English subtitles available). Enjoy!
The above investigation was published by us in September 2021. During the 11 years that I’ve worked for Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, we have published hundreds of stories like this one. You can support our work via donate.fbk.world.
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1/21 Did you know corporations like Apple sometimes help authoritarian regimes survive? Not by accident—by choice. Dictators rely on their complicity to impose censorship and tighten their grip on power. The Apple you know is not the Apple we see in Russia. THREAD 🧵
2/21 Over the past year, Apple has bent over backward to comply with Putin’s government’s demands. They’ve systematically restricted Russian users’ access to independent media and removed countless VPN apps from the App Store—tools vital for bypassing censorship.
3/21 I’m sure you don’t realise how bad it really is. In October Apple removed the app of the independent Russian language TV channel Current Time. In November BBC Russian Service podcasts were banned, along with those from The Insider, Echo of Moscow, and Radio Liberty.
Часть переписок Невзлина, которая касается Латвии, мы передали латвийским журналистам. И вот вчера вышло несколько сюжетов, которые проливают дополнительный свет на всю эту историю. Журналисты докрутили тему про паспорт и про то, как Невзлин "мочил" других олигархов. Рассказываю!
Среди них Гусинский, Дерипаска, и в первую очередь, Петр Авен. Невзлин заказывал, а Блинов размещал материалы через желтые СМИ, которые входят в группу компаний Петериса Шмидре. Все эти материалы без труда можно найти, как и обсуждение денег, которые были за них заплачены.
Невзлин очень смешно вычитывает статьи, находит там ошибки, а еще даёт их на проверку некоему "Киселеву". Предположу, что речь об известном журналисте Евгении Киселеве, который, к слову, сейчас рьяно защищает Невзлина.
1/28 Воспользуюсь информационным поводом, чтобы рассказать вам немного о работе международного отдела ФБК. Фоновой работе, которой и мысли не было хвастаться в паблике. Но на прошлой неделе я чуть со стула не упала от удивления и возмущения, увидев ЭТО. Тема нам не чуждая. ТРЕД🧵
2/28 Сначала разберёмся, что все обсуждали на той неделе. Максим Кац создал в Израиле фонд, который бегает по грантодателям и просит денег на КОМПЕНСАЦИЮ ВЫПАДАЮЩИХ ДОХОДОВ ютюб-блогеров. Логика такая: тебя признали иноагентом >> доход от рекламы упал >> возместите разницу.
3/28 Заметил это Майкл Наки, возмутился от двумя вещами. Тем, что в докладе, который де факто является грантовой заявкой, упомянут его канал. И тем, что ютюб-блогеры, о которых идет речь в заявке, скажем мягко, не самые первые в списке нуждающихся.
Жарков в своей колонке точно замечает, что "демофобия наряду с абсолютизацией роли рынка — один из столпов российской либеральной догматики 90-х." Если речь зашла о демофобии, мне вспомнилась другая статья, ссылку на которую я подсмотрела у В.Гельмана. Авторства кружка Чубайса.
Чубайс возглавлял некий научный кружок или ассоциацию, и это их видение того, как должны проводиться либеральные реформы. Еще до того, как Чубайсу выпал шанс реально эти реформы проводить, в его голове царили антидемократические взгляды и тотальное презрение к людям. Мини-тред👇
Суть статьи (1990 г) в том, что Чубайс и Ко рассуждают о политическом сопровождении предлагаемых ими рыночных реформ. Какая политическая поддержка им понадобится. Первое, что предлагается - разогнать профсоюзы, если они не поддержат реформы. А вместо них создать свои, карманные.
1/14 Politicians are often asked, "What have you done in your first 100 days in office?" It's a symbolic amount of time, of course, but enough to show some intent. So today, I would like to ask Western officials, "What have you done in the 100 days since Alexei Navalny's murder?"
2/14 We've heard countless times from world leaders that Putin is personally responsible for Navalny's life and safety. If a hair falls from Navalny's head, Putin is in trouble. Well, now Navalny is dead. What were the consequences for Putin? NONE.
3/14 It's actually worse than none. The UK sanctions package in response to Navalny's murder included six individuals. Six prison employees who live in the village of Kharp. These people most likely haven't even considered traveling abroad, perhaps not even outside their region.
Ever wondered what happened to this? It was a widely discussed and supported initiative to sanction Putin's 'authorised representatives'. Those individuals who endorsed and officially participated in Putin's electoral campaign. Here is the answer: nothing. Nothing has happened.
I am still convinced that the idea is brilliant. We proposed to preemptively announce that anyone who would join the list of Putin's endorsers will be sanctioned immediately after the election. And this would discourage celebrities from joining.
And I think even just this public discussion kinda worked. In the first December list of Putin's 'authorized representatives', there were indeed fewer famous people than usual. We were hopeful and continued to bombard the EU authorities with our proposal.