I’m making this video so that you can help me ask one question to a certain man who has a big press conference tomorrow.
So, two days ago we published an investigation about state banker Kostin and his beloved TV presenter Nailya Asker-zade (the investigation has now reached 3.5 million views, but we still ask you to keep sharing it). At her feet he lavishly throws everything he manages to steal from the state bank: apartments, houses, a yacht, and, of course, a private jet worth 4 billion rubles.
And it’s simply hard to believe. How can you steal a huge brand-new airplane? It’s not some trinket.
People write to me and ask: how can a scheme like this even work? First you register the plane to a bank subsidiary. Then you transfer it to your offshore company, and that’s it—goodbye. But what about the oversight bodies? The FSB officers specially assigned to the bank? You can’t hide something like that. They’d notice.
We were puzzled too, but today I’m ready to give you the answer.
A state banker can steal a plane for his mistress this easily in only one case: if he’s using the same scheme to steal planes for even more influential people. The kind no one will dare ask questions about, because then it somehow stops being theft and becomes a matter of state importance.
So, taking advantage of the fact that some of the reporting is publicly available, we started looking to see whether there were other planes registered to the same companies as TV presenter Asker-zade’s jet.
And we discovered that another plane had been taken from the state bank through exactly the same offshore scheme. Big, beautiful, and very expensive. And do you know who flies on it?
An old acquaintance of ours from the film “He Is Not Dimon to You”. Svetlana Vladimirovna Medvedeva—the wife of Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev, Prime Minister of the Russian Federation and leader of the ruling United Russia party.
Look how simple it is. Here’s the scheme by which Nailya got her own plane. First it belonged to VTB Leasing, then it was sold to an offshore company in Belize called IF COMPANY LIMITED, and since then it has effectively been in Nailya’s use.
And here it’s the same story. We’re talking about a Bombardier Global Express 5000 worth $50 million.
At first, the aircraft with tail number M-SKSM belonged to a VTB subsidiary. Then, the day after Nailya’s plane, this aircraft was transferred to the very same offshore company. But in reality, all this time it has been used by Prime Minister Medvedev’s wife.
The previous owner, until December 28, 2017, was the offshore company TEKSER MANAGEMENT LIMITED. It is a subsidiary of VTB Leasing.
The current owner is IF COMPANY LIMITED. It is the same Belize offshore company that owns Nailya Asker-zade’s plane.
It was very easy to find that the Belize offshore company owns another plane. You just have to google the name of the offshore company, and it comes up among the first results.
After that it gets a bit more complicated. The plane flies A LOT. It practically never leaves Europe; this year alone it has been there 39 times. But to understand who uses it, we don’t need Nice or London.
From the list of places the plane has visited over the past four years, we pick out the most… unusual ones, let’s say. Places where the arrival of a high-profile guest on a private jet would make the news. Orenburg is perfect for that purpose. The plane was there on October 8, 2015.
We simply type “Orenburg” into a news search, choose the relevant date, and see what was happening in Orenburg that day.
As it turns out, Svetlana Medvedeva was in the city that day!
We repeat the exercise with a flight to Ufa a year later, in October 2016.
We search the news the same way and find the same thing.
On that day, Svetlana Medvedeva flew into Ufa and visited a diagnostic center there.
Despite the fact that Svetlana Medvedeva is an extremely private person under extraordinary security, we still managed to find a substantial number of mentions of her private visits, both in Russia and abroad. And all of them match the movements of VTB’s private jet.
Kemerovo. News report: half the city was shut down because of Medvedeva’s visit.
Israel, April 2015. Svetlana Medvedeva makes a pilgrimage visit.
Then, on July 2, 2016, the plane lands somewhere we at first can’t even identify.
But then we figure it out. It’s the military air base Savasleyka in the Kulebaki urban district, on the border of the Vladimir and Nizhny Novgorod regions.
It’s the nearest place where you can land a jet—probably not just any jet, either—to get to Murom, which is 20 kilometers (12 miles) away. And in Murom, at the celebration of the Day of Family, Love and Fidelity (a Russian state holiday created as a conservative alternative to Valentine’s Day), we find Svetlana.
Incidentally, she came up with this holiday herself—as a rebuke to the hostile St. Valentine’s Day. Now it is celebrated every year at the state level.
Next, a visit to St. Petersburg. She visits the Naval Cathedral in Kronstadt.
Ivanovo. She is seen at the opening of the Dacha Festival in Plyos. Which makes sense—she and her husband are the area’s most prominent summer-house owners.
My favorite one. June 2017. The plane flies to Cyprus.
And we find a photo of Svetlana in Cyprus that day, posted by a local guide-cab driver.
Then Murom once again, for the next Family, Love and Fidelity festival.
And this year as well. In March—Jerusalem. She venerated holy sites there at exactly the same time the plane was there.
And then in the summer in St. Petersburg, again in Kronstadt, this time with Beglov.
So in total, we have at least 11 exact matches.
And here’s the best part. Some Greek aviation enthusiasts on the island of Kos, who track flights to their island, discovered that in the summer of 2012 Svetlana Medvedeva and Ilya Medvedev—Dmitry Medvedev’s then 17-year-old son—flew there on this plane. They wrote it plainly on their website: dates, tail number, names, everything. What do they have to be afraid of?
Just to be clear, I’ll spell out the obvious—but important—points.
The prime minister’s wife is not entitled to a personal aircraft. The Medvedev family may travel and vacation ONLY at their own expense. Any other scenario is either theft from the state budget or bribes from oligarchs. Only Medvedev himself can pay for his wife’s vacations and travel. Because she has nothing to pay with—she has never worked and has no income.
And although Medvedev’s salary is enormous—800,000 rubles a month—even the entire monthly salary of our chief United Russia politician would only cover the cost of one hour of flying Svetlana Medvedeva’s plane.
So perhaps VTB Bank is paying for the prime minister’s wife’s flights—and that is corruption.
Or some oligarch is paying for it. And that is corruption.
Or a controlled foundation is paying, as we described in the film “He Is Not Dimon to You”. And that is corruption too.
And the only final possibility is that Medvedev himself is paying with money from a secret foreign bank account. Stolen money—there can be no other kind there.
I lean toward the first option. The nimble banker Kostin provides a corrupt scheme for Medvedev’s wife, pays for the flights with state bank money, and doesn’t forget himself either. He has included his mistress in this package of exclusive services as well.
But returning to where I began: why guess when we can ask? Tomorrow Medvedev has a major press conference. It will be broadcast live on 20 channels at once.
And I appeal to all journalists. Perhaps among you there are honest people who will ask Medvedev a direct question: your wife uses a $50 million Bombardier Global 5000 aircraft. She has logged many hours in it, and the operation of the jet alone has cost tens of millions of rubles. Who paid for that? Who owns this plane?
And as for all of you, dear viewers, I urge you to follow this press conference. Watch to see whether an honest and courageous journalist will finally emerge. And post comments to all 20 TV channels with the hashtag #SvetlanaMedvedevaPlane.
Our task is to make this the main question of the press conference. Everyone should know that this question exists. And hear the answer. Or learn that, as usual, there will be no answer. Just nonsense, obfuscation, and gibberish.