“Blog-out” from March 2, 2017. Comment on the investigation “He’s not Dimon for you.”

20 hours and 4 minutes in the capital. Hello everyone! At the microphone is Irina Vorobyova. This is the program “Blog-out.” And today a large part of the program, its first part, is devoted to the loudest event on the Russian internet, at least as of today. We’ll see what happens next. This is the Anti-Corruption Foundation’s investigation into Prime Minister Medvedev’s secret empire. In the studio with us is politician Alexei Navalny. Alexei, good evening!

Good evening!

You can find everything on the website navalny.com. All the links are there, you can see everything. There is a 49-minute video there and a large text version. The question is: how did it all begin — this investigation, which, as I understand it, was kept secret even from some ACF employees?

That’s absolutely right. Our investigations department works fairly separately. Not because we don’t trust ACF employees; we are simply afraid of leaks, afraid even to say some things out loud so as to prevent crooks from covering their tracks. And our investigation started with something really quite funny — Dmitry Medvedev’s sneakers. Probably many people who follow his activities, his official photographs, see that he likes to dress quite brightly. In particular, he always has these cheerful sneakers. And when we were analyzing his hacked email, which was published somewhere about two years ago by this group “Anonymous International,” whose members have now mostly been imprisoned, we looked at the purchases made from the mailbox that belongs to Dmitry Medvedev. And we saw that when such bright sneakers were being bought, we thought, “damn, we’ve seen these somewhere before.” A. Navalny: Our investigations department works fairly separately And then we simply started analyzing. We reviewed, probably, all the official photographs of Dmitry Medvedev over the past year. Believe me, that is quite a horrible activity. And we established that, indeed, this email belongs to him. We saw that he wears the clothes that someone orders online, we made sure that this really is his address. And then we simply looked at where these clothes were delivered and found one address, then a second address. Then suddenly a palace of enormous proportions appears on Rublyovka worth 5 billion rubles. We begin to look at who owns this palace and see that it was simply donated by oligarch Usmanov to a charitable organization. Well, nobody gives gifts like that. And this is clearly not charitable activity. 5 billion rubles… Here you are, Irina, you run a charitable organization and you know that such money and such property are simply inaccessible to any charitable organization in Russia. Therefore, when we saw that this was a direct gift from oligarch Usmanov personally to a charitable foundation, we understood that something was wrong here. We began comparing the management of this charitable organization with those organizations directly connected to Medvedev and his wife. And we saw that there are several people, Medvedev’s closest trusted associates — relatives, classmates — who created an entire network, a kind of conglomerate of NGOs, charitable organizations, which engage in charity exclusively in favor of his family. They buy palaces, they buy residences, they buy yachts, they buy vineyards abroad. And what unites all this scattered property is only that Medvedev uses all of it.

So that very company to whose address those very sneakers, shirts, and something else were delivered led you to this residence, this house on Rublyovka? A. Navalny: And our investigation started with something really quite funny — Dmitry Medvedev’s sneakers

Yes, absolutely right.

And it is connected specifically to this.

Yes. And we began identifying people through official data, through open databases. We found foundations that they had also established. For all these foundations we again found astonishing luxury real estate. For example, Kursk Region is a rather poor region, and — bang! — we suddenly discover a property worth several billion rubles. It turns out to be the ancestral nest.

We’ll get to Kursk Region in a moment. I’d like to sort out the house on Rublyovka. In the ACF investigation it says that there really is a large area there and that you found on Instagram, from one of the builders, a photograph where it is directly called “Medvedev’s Residence.” But besides that, are there any other signs that Dmitry Medvedev visits this house on Rublyovka?

As for the house on Rublyovka specifically, this is the only place where we do not directly find traces of Dmitry Medvedev, because it is quite difficult to get there. This is an object no one knew about. But the general pattern… Besides that, there is the Psekhako residence in Sochi, where Medvedev is right now, from where he is posting his photographs right now. Externally, architecturally, it is completely identical to this house on Rublyovka. It also belongs to these same Medvedev charitable foundations. And again, when an oligarch gives an estate worth 5 billion rubles including the land to a charitable foundation, who do you think he is making such gifts for? Yes, we do not have ironclad proof that Medvedev himself or his relatives live in this house, but the overall scheme undoubtedly points to that.

All right, the next point is Kursk Region, the estate in the village of Mansurovo. If I understand correctly, this village is the native land of Dmitry Medvedev’s ancestors.

His grandfather and father lived there.

And then there is this huge estate. What is Dmitry Anatolyevich’s connection there — not that of his ancestors, but the fact that he really goes there — what is it? What is there? A. Navalny: Corruption in Russia is so open that simply from open sources we can expose these schemes

That is certainly true. This is confirmed by local residents, it is published in the local press. In general, it is not even hidden.

What do local residents mean — they saw him there?

The local residents are in the video, in our investigation — they directly say: “There is a huge amount of security here. Medvedev comes here, his wife comes here.” There is quite a lot of archival footage showing this. In general, Kursk Region, there is not much going on there, especially in Mansurovo, in the village. Therefore every visit by Medvedev — and this happens often — is widely covered. Moreover, Ilya Yeliseyev — one of the most important participants in this scheme, Medvedev’s classmate, his closest trusted associate — even gave an interview regarding this property and said that these were some kind of “single-story buildings of enhanced comfort” they built for him. But you can turn — I am now addressing radio listeners — to our film and see how wonderful these so-called “enhanced comfort” buildings look.

And Ilya Yeliseyev in this interview also confirms that Dmitry Anatolyevich visits this estate.

Yes, he also says that Medvedev visits there regularly, opened a church there. There is a chapel there, which Medvedev personally opened on his 45th birthday on the site where his father’s house stood. That is, there is no doubt that this is property regularly used by Medvedev. But besides this property there is a gigantic agricultural complex there. As we write in the investigation, apparently Medvedev is not satisfied with just an ancestral nest. He feels like a master of the estate. And a master needs a farm, cows, haymaking, some girls being whipped in the stable… Well, judging by what we found, he really has a slight obsession with luxury real estate, because they are buying up these houses like mad. From open sources alone, we established that 70 billion rubles were donated either by oligarchs or by state-controlled banks to these charitable foundations, and they spent all this money on their residences and palaces. Why — unclear. But apparently, he simply wants to have all this.

If I understand correctly, another person with the surname Medvedev is also connected with this agricultural complex in Kursk Region. And you say he is some relative of his. A. Navalny: Then suddenly a palace of enormous proportions appears on Rublyovka worth 5 billion rubles

This causes not the slightest doubt. Andrei Medvedev is Dmitry Medvedev’s cousin. There is a photograph from their childhood, and there is a book written by Medvedev’s aunt. Everyone knows this. And there is not the slightest doubt here. Today I saw comments by this Andrei Medvedev. I think RBC managed to reach him. He said he would not comment on the question of kinship because it is a personal matter — also quite a candid comment, I would say, in this situation. So yes, as I said at the beginning, trusted associates and relatives are involved in the scheme. And Svetlana Medvedeva, Medvedev’s wife, and Andrei Medvedev, his cousin — they participate in this scheme. A. Navalny: First they fabricate cases, and then they say that all investigations regarding them were published by a criminal

Let’s talk about the key figure in the ACF investigation, in this empire. Ilya Yeliseyev is Dmitry Medvedev’s classmate — this is stated in the investigation. How does it all work? There are certain charitable foundations, somehow connected with each other through supervisory boards and so on. There are also some commercial structures in which Ilya Yeliseyev also has some share of participation… founder — who is he there?

Actually, to simplify it, Medvedev has 5 reliable people. These 5–6 reliable people created a bunch of foundations and a bunch of commercial organizations, which are needed, among other things, to service the property. Well, if you are building 5 residences, then you need builders, maintenance staff, utilities, housekeeping, maids — a huge operation. And so all 5 of his trusted associates created both all the charitable organizations and all the commercial organizations. These people overlap everywhere: they are on supervisory boards, they are managers, they are directors. And Ilya Yeliseyev is the main one among them. In most places he is either chairman of the board of directors or manager… He occupies some key positions. He is deputy chairman of the management board of Gazprombank. And again, from public reporting we see that Gazprombank is one of the main donors to these non-profit organizations. And just from Gazprombank’s reports we see an astonishing thing — again, to the question of charity in Russia — that at some point the management company of the Dar foundation was in third place among Gazprombank’s borrowers, one of the largest banks. That is, we see metallurgical plants there, oil companies, and then suddenly — bang! — among them, a charitable organization. And they also received this money from Gazprombank into their charitable foundations and bought yachts with it. In particular, a billion rubles was spent just on the purchase of two yachts used by Medvedev, and we have established this conclusively as well. Italian vineyards were also bought with this same money, at the estate in Tuscany, which also belongs to Medvedev. A. Navalny: When we saw that this was a direct gift from oligarch Usmanov personally to a charitable foundation, we understood that...

But the reporting of these foundations we are talking about — that should also be disclosed, shouldn’t it? Was it somehow possible to see it?

It is not there, in violation of the law. These are Russian legal entities. You are absolutely right, they are obliged to disclose their reporting, but it is closed. Therefore, from the foundations’ reporting we see nothing. We see from the reporting of the organizations connected with these foundations. For example, we obtained these loan data from Irish reporting related to an offshore company and so on. It was long and painstaking work. There is no point here in simply explaining all this legal mechanics, but all the data we published is verifiable. We have no insider information, it’s not like one source told us this… Everything is based on documents, all the documents are published and anyone can verify them.

I wanted to ask about the yachts. I really liked that part of the video about the yachts, because, if I understand correctly, it is not only the fact that these yachts were bought by an offshore company, if I am not mistaken, not only the fact that these yachts are Fotiniya…

Fotiniya is the church version of the name Svetlana.

…But also the fact that this yacht was, if I understood correctly, at the Scarlet Sails celebration.

Yes. Against Dmitry Medvedev, in fact, his fondness for photography worked strongly in our case. He posts a lot of photographs on Instagram, and in particular, from these photographs, comparing them with other photographs, simply by the mountain profile and the point from which the photo was taken, we identified the mountain residence Psekhako in Sochi, where he often is. And in particular, several times he photographed the beautiful fireworks at the Scarlet Sails celebration. And using the yacht geotags, which are also published and freely available, the angle of these photographs, we see that Medvedev posted these shots on Instagram while being on board these very yachts, and thus we also prove that he uses them directly. And in general, all cases of yacht use… Yachts are photographed quite often. Something beautiful sails down the river — someone photographs it, posts it on Instagram. We found all this, compared all this, reviewed all this. It is enormous work, but it led to the fact that we conclusively prove that the yacht is always where Medvedev is. Medvedev sails on it. It is in Plyos, it is in St. Petersburg, he photographs from it. And this is simply an ironclad fact. A. Navalny: Besides this property there is a gigantic agricultural complex there

About the residence in Sochi. If I understand correctly, initially this facility, which is located next to Krasnaya Polyana, was built as an Olympic facility.

Yes. This is also, by the way, a rather outrageous thing, a violation. Because it was included in the list of Olympic facilities, and accordingly the regulation was such that everything could be demolished in order to build it, with various benefits and privileges. But in practice, of course, it is in no way a public facility, as an Olympic venue should be. It is an absolutely closed residence. It is absolutely impossible to get there. It was quite difficult for us to film it. It is guarded by the Federal Protective Service and so on. This is Medvedev’s closed residence. He posts photographs from it. We managed to find the design documentation of what is inside — all sorts of funny things: impression showers and even a small water amusement park. The bath complex alone has an area of 1,000 square meters. And this mountain Medvedev residence, taking into account its location, taking into account how expensive it was to build in the mountains, is probably the most expensive of the properties we filmed.

And here Instagram photos again let Dmitry Medvedev down. You compared the mountain profiles and the lanterns.

Absolutely right.

Besides that, if I remember correctly, from that same hacked correspondence, which supposedly belongs to Dmitry Medvedev…

No longer supposedly: the sneakers and shirts proved it.

In your view, no longer supposedly. There is some mark there at the level of one and a half kilometers.

Yes, in the subject line of the email he simply writes: “Mark, I think, 415” — that is the altitude above sea level. And amusingly, he simply writes that he needs to order some glasses, goblets, and other beautiful things and writes that they need to be divided between the “mountain” and the “river.” The “mountain” is obviously Psekhako, and the “river” is obviously Plyos.

The vineyards in Krasnodar Krai. Who do these vineyards belong to, and what do they have to do with Medvedev? I suspect it’s exactly the same as everything else.

Exactly the same as everything else. There is a legal entity called “Sunny Shore,” and these vineyards were acquired for it. This legal entity, in turn, belongs to the same foundations, and these vineyards are managed by the same people who manage the Italian vineyards and who are involved in all the other schemes. A. Navalny: Medvedev is not satisfied with just an ancestral nest. He feels like a master of the estate Now, the interesting thing about the vineyards is this. We see that Medvedev bought these vineyards for himself… In Russia these are probably the best vineyards, among the very best. They are located in Anapa, there are 100 hectares of these vineyards there, a wonderful place. And connoisseurs say that this place is similar to Italy. From the moment he bought them, he begins to take a lively interest in winemaking. Special government meetings. The winemaking industry receives many benefits. Wine ceases to be an alcoholic beverage and becomes an agricultural product, which affects tax regulation and so on. That is, we see a typical example of a conflict of interest. A person invested in the winemaking industry, after which the government begins giving benefits to the winemaking industry. Maybe that is good, maybe the winemaking industry does need benefits, but here we see a completely different motive: not to help someone — but to help one’s own personal estate. And the agriculture minister, who apparently is in some kind of joint business with Medvedev, is also happy to participate in all this.

What about Tuscany?

Tuscany is a wonderful thing, because in addition to corruption it also once again shows the absolute hypocrisy of the Russian authorities. They tell you how we stood up to sanctions, how great patriots we are, let’s do without Italian products — and at the same time people are using the money of a non-profit charitable organization to buy a 17th-century villa and around this villa 100 hectares of wonderful vineyards, olive trees. We also showed this in the video. We specially sent a person there. We were already joking today that he suffered — went to Tuscany, filmed these vineyards. But in fact, jokes aside, this is disgusting. Here they are — you turn on the television and it is disgusting to watch — they tell us about the “terrible West” and “let’s all unite around the president.” And at the same moment these people buy vineyards in Tuscany and make wine and olive oil there.

The main question: Alexei, Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev, Prime Minister of the Russian Federation — what direct connection does he have to everything listed, besides the fact that Ilya Yeliseyev, Oleg Chetvertkov, and so on are people who know him, studied with him?

He has a completely direct connection — he uses all of this directly. In most cases all this is guarded by the Federal Protective Service. The same dacha in Plyos, about which we did an investigation earlier, but which is part of the empire, has an official no-fly zone over it established by the Government of the Russian Federation. An official FSO unit is stationed there — military unit such-and-such… Therefore there is no doubt. A. Navalny: They buy palaces, residences, they buy yachts, vineyards abroad. And what unites this We didn’t catch him in the house on Rublyovka, which Usmanov gifted, but in all the other places Medvedev is there, he actively uses them, he sails on this yacht, he goes to Psekhako. This is his property. And this property was bought with the money that oligarchs contributed to charitable foundations — and I believe this is a direct bribe — and banks under state control. Look, again 70 billion rubles. Why, all charity in Russia over several years is less than this amount. That’s all, that’s the answer to this question. We have not the slightest doubt. It is legally proven that he actively uses it. And of course the Investigative Committee and the prosecutor’s office should investigate all this. Because this is exactly the kind of corruption case that would instantly bring Medvedev and Usmanov, and the other oligarchs who gave money, and the people who organized all of this, to the defendants’ bench.

Alexei, I remember very well the Panama Papers, where we all learned about Putin’s friend — Roldugin. And nothing happened. Everyone simply said: yes, there is such a friend. “I am engaged in music” — and that was it. Here too there is Dmitry Medvedev and there are his friends. Yes, he visits them — and that’s all. What kind of reaction, in reality, in today’s reality and not in the Russia one can imagine — an ideal one — can be expected? A. Navalny: Now, the interesting thing about the vineyards is this. We see that Medvedev bought these vineyards for himself…

We still imagine an ideal Russia. Because I proceed from what ought to be done. I am not a naive person. I have been doing investigations for many years. And in general, I and my colleagues at the Anti-Corruption Foundation have published many such investigations, each of which in a normal country would have led to a parliamentary crisis, to the resignation of the government. But nothing happens, because power in the country has been seized by a genuine mafia group. And our investigation today is exactly about that — how people openly receive billion-ruble bribes and buy residences with them, which the state then guards from us. And I understand that there will be no reaction now. What, are they going to imprison themselves? Will the corrupt Chaika imprison the corrupt Medvedev? Or will the corrupt Putin make some claims against Medvedev? Of course that will not happen. But nevertheless, I try to act based on how this should be done in a proper world. Right now we are watching how in the United States an entire crisis is happening because someone gave false information, said “I did not meet with the Russian ambassador,” while in fact he did meet. A person is being forced to resign because of that. And in Russia we see a situation where we published on the internet — yes, they got a 70-billion-ruble bribe — and everyone writes: “Well yes, nothing interesting. Nothing will come of it.”

Here is the reaction of the prime minister’s press secretary. Natalya Timakova said that this is vividly expressed… election-related… and so on and in general, you’re a criminal, Alexei.

Yes, this is a wonderful dialogue between the authorities and society. We tell them: “Guys, explain whose palaces these are and why Medvedev goes there?” And in response they tell us: “We are not going to comment on anything said by this oppositionist and criminal.” Well, that is precisely the answer to the question why I am a criminal. Because first they fabricate cases, and then they say that all investigations regarding them were published by a criminal. A. Navalny: I understand that there will be no reaction now. What, are they going to imprison themselves or what? But here something else is interesting: they have nothing to answer with. If they had at least something, they would say they were suing, bring some papers, say that “Navalny says Medvedev was in this place at this time — and here is proof that Medvedev was somewhere else. Ha-ha! Your Navalny is a fool and his investigations are bad.” But substantively there is absolutely nothing to object to. Therefore they simply say: “We will not comment — he is a criminal.” And it seems to me that this simply proves our case wonderfully.

As for comments by other people, from a somewhat different camp. Some democratic politicians directly say that this is all Vladimir Putin’s election campaign — that is what Grigory Yavlinsky said.

Vladimir Putin’s… Well, okay if they at least said it was my election campaign. I understand that many politicians are simply jealous that we are doing something while they, in general, have nothing left to do except comment on what we are doing. I expected comments of this kind, that this was an order from Sechin, Shuvalov, or Putin. I am surprised that Yavlinsky came out in the front ranks with such comments. Well, I can only regret it.

And in fact, really no one helped from the side with this investigation, no one slipped anything to you, so to speak?..

There was nothing to slip. If you read all this — we show in quite a lot of detail how we did it. Here are the sneakers. Here, look what we did. Here, compare the photographs… Again, this entire investigation is based on open data. We do not need any insiders. We would be happy if they existed, if a black envelope came to us and we opened it — and there were photographs of Medvedev, which… what was it there… his “impression shower” in Psekhako. Probably we would not publish everything, but we would have such evidence. A. Navalny: Kursk Region is a rather poor region, and — bang! — we suddenly discover a property We do not need that. Unfortunately, corruption in Russia is so open that simply from open sources, from open data, we can expose these schemes.

Nevertheless, even on your website it says that this is a cunning scheme.

It is cunning. It is cunning in that a charitable organization, the property of a charitable organization, in fact belongs to no one. It belongs only to the charitable organization itself. And therefore it makes it possible, as Medvedev apparently thought, that if something happened, he could play dumb and say: “This is not mine, this belongs to the Foundation of Olympic Sports.” They simply bought so much, and in reality there are not that many trusted associates, that we simply see the same 5 people everywhere, and secondly, all this is connected to Medvedev. Therefore we established everything. But the scheme is quite sophisticated, I would say; it is not simple, it is expensive. Medvedev is a lawyer, after all — so apparently he applied his legal knowledge.

Some ordinary things like “we’ll send it to the prosecutor’s office…”

Certainly. We have already done that. We will demand a formal investigation. We have filed a crime report. We will appeal to State Duma deputies and all the other structures. We will do all this, but right now what is most important for us, of course, is help in spreading this investigation. Therefore, if radio listeners join in, we will be very grateful to them for that.

Politician Alexei Navalny on the program “Blog-out” today. Thank you very much!