Russia is at war with Ukraine. A senseless, unimaginable war has already been going on for a week. Russia attacked Ukraine. Russia is bombing Ukrainian cities. This is the kind of ordinary apartment block so familiar to our eyes, in Kharkiv. It was hit by a shell.
This is a movie theater in Chernihiv. Almost nothing is left of it.
This is what it looked like before.
This is a typical playground in Kharkiv; next to the swing, part of a missile is sticking out of the ground.
At a metro station in Kyiv, children are being shown cartoons. People are effectively living in this station, sheltering from the bombing.
In the first three days of the war with Ukraine, Russia lost more military personnel than in three years in Afghanistan. Below are the bodies of Russian soldiers from this war. This man's name was Valery Zhidkov; he was a captain.
This one was Ivan Popov, just 21 years old.
According to independent investigators, more than 5,000 Russian soldiers were killed in the first five days of the war. Russia's Ministry of Defense acknowledges almost no losses; the soldiers' bodies have been abandoned. No one wants them.
And this is a map of Europe. The countries highlighted in red are those that have banned Russian aircraft from flying over their territory.
Russia is in complete isolation. Sanctions have been imposed on Kamaz, Russian Railways, the Kalashnikov Concern, Sukhoi, and Tupolev.
The famous Superjet can be thrown in the trash: foreign components for it can no longer be bought. Shipments of foreign cars to Russia have stopped. And the factories that assembled cars here have halted operations.
Or take the iPhone, for example—you may be watching this video on one. A model like this went up by 15,000 rubles overnight.
But never mind the iPhone—here's a washing machine. A week ago it cost 16,500 rubles, and now it's 26,000.
A hair dryer—a simple hair dryer people use to dry their hair. On February 23 it was 4,500 rubles; today it's 700 rubles more.
A blood pressure monitor. It's used to measure blood pressure. On February 24 it was 3,290 rubles. By February 28, it was 560 rubles more.
Or medicines. Supplies have not even run out yet, only a few days have passed, and prices have already risen. Ordinary Theraflu for the flu—the price has suddenly shot up for some reason.
Who did this to our country? In just a few days, thousands of our fellow citizens have died, and millions of already poor people have been plunged into destitution. The borders are de facto closed—to people, to technology, and to money. Industry has been thrown back by decades, people are losing their jobs and standing in lines stretching for kilometers outside ATMs. Just like in the 1990s.
This is not our war. It is Putin's war. He invented it, and made all of us suffer for it. This is the war of Putin's billionaires, of his costumed, half-crazed generals. These are the real enemies of Russia: the militant members of United Russia, dressed up and celebratory in grand gilded halls, sending our country into the abyss.
Across the country, people are protesting against the war.
Those who object are seized and beaten right on the street. On television, they will tell you that if you do not like the war, you are a traitor. And if you do not want to send your children to the front, to the slaughter, then you are not a patriot—you are not thinking about Russia, only about your petty, immediate, supposedly insignificant problems.
You all know Valentina Matviyenko very well. She worked in the government, was governor of St. Petersburg, and now she is the head of the Federation Council and a member of the Security Council, one of Putin's closest allies and a close friend of Sergei Shoigu.
She is the head of the Federation Council, the upper chamber of parliament—the state body that approved this war. Her name is on the authorization allowing Putin to use the Russian army abroad.
Valentina Ivanovna, a member of the bureau of the Supreme Council of the United Russia party, even thanked every senator who spoke. Thank you, thank you, thank you for supporting the war.
Matviyenko is lying. Deliberately, fully aware of what she is doing, and informed that Putin would start a war, that there would be deaths and losses, she lies. She lies about Nazis in Ukraine, about a peacekeeping mission, about some great purpose.
And today it will take very little to explain to you why this 72-year-old woman, this very wealthy woman with a lifetime of political experience, committed a war crime. To show you the extent of Valentina Matviyenko's personal hypocrisy, lies, and corruption.
She started a war not just against a neighboring country, but against her own homeland: she is Ukrainian, she lived in Cherkasy until the age of 17, and her parents are buried there.
Cherkasy is now being bombed by Russian troops. That is the essence of Putin's hypocritical regime: nothing is sacred, there are no beliefs or principles—only the desire to steal.
Valentina Ivanovna Matviyenko is very rich. She can be called an icon of Putin-era corruption. Over decades of serving Putin, she—a bureaucrat, a civil servant, receiving an official salary from the state budget—somehow magically became a billionaire. Matviyenko has always stolen shamelessly. She appears at public events wearing jewelry and watches worth tens of millions of rubles.
She openly declares vast real estate holdings that she could never have afforded to buy.
And of course, many people remember her dear son—Sergei Matviyenko.
By the age of 36, Matviyenko's son already owned property worth $1 billion. How did that happen—what extraordinary talent for getting rich was this? Matviyenko was stealing in St. Petersburg while his mother was running the city.
Unfazed by accusations of a conflict of interest, Seryozha, under "investment agreements" with St. Petersburg City Hall, received city property on lease and then privatized it. This famous building—the O.S. Petrovskaya dacha—is his.
And this historic Follenweider mansion as well.
And this income-producing apartment building of the writer Vonlyarlyarsky on Truda Square.
And many more buildings generating millions in rental income. Right now, the son of the speaker of the Federation Council is making enormous sums from contracts awarded by the authorities in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other regions. His companies repair sewer systems. The total portfolio of state contracts is 3 billion rubles.
It is also worth getting acquainted with Valentina Matviyenko's daughter-in-law. Yulia Matviyenko is a former model, a socialite, and the owner of a small fashion atelier. She loves showing off her glamorous life on Instagram, and that will be very useful to us.
Now let us think: will Matviyenko's children go to fight in Ukraine? Will Seryozha Matviyenko be drafted to the front, handed a weapon, and sent into battle near Melitopol? Perhaps her daughter-in-law Yulia will be sent to a field hospital somewhere in the Luhansk region to work as a nurse? Will both of them be taken prisoner, as Russian soldiers are now?
Let us reveal a secret: they will not even be in the country. To uncover the Matviyenko family's main secret—and the explanation for why Valentina Matviyenko can launch a war against a neighboring country without batting an eye—we need to go... to Italy.
The answer to how Valentina Matviyenko manages not to think about immediate problems and hardships is literally written on the fence. About 170 kilometers (roughly 106 miles) from Venice, in the small town of Pesaro, there is an inconspicuous lane not marked on the map that ends at large wrought-iron gates. Behind the gates stands a luxurious villa on a huge 26-hectare (about 64-acre) estate.
Who does it belong to? Unknown. In the land registry documents, the owner is listed as the Italian foundation Dominanta. Its owners are not disclosed.
The only clue to the real owners is this plaque on the column: Villa M. On any other day, one could simply turn around and leave. But Villa M is currently undergoing renovations, which means that on the information board right on the gate, it will say who is paying for the work.
And there is such a sign here. It lists the landowner—the same Dominanta foundation—but it also names the client commissioning the construction work: Sergei Matviyenko. We got lucky: the work began only recently, in November 2021; this sign was not here before. The description of the work mentions some kind of extraordinary maintenance.
And now that we know for certain whose property this is, let us look at the estate of the Federation Council speaker's family from above. Right in front of us is the precious land of the Italian coast. This is the town of Pesaro; it is more than two thousand years old. The area around it is beautiful—a pleasant seafront, hills, mountains a little farther off, and even in February everything here is green.
There are private villas here too, and one of them—the largest, with a 26-hectare (about 64-acre) plot—immediately stands out. This is the Matviyenko family's villa. The property's own stretch of shoreline alone runs for 650 meters (about 0.4 miles).
By the way, do you see the lighthouse in the upper right? It is not just some old, useless lighthouse—it belongs to the Italian Navy, part of Italy's armed forces. In other words, it is a NATO military site. On Google Maps it is marked as a military base. It stands 50 meters (about 164 feet) from the villa's fence. That is how comfortably the Matviyenko family has settled in behind enemy lines.
Let us fly on; we can begin examining the estate itself. In summer everything here blooms and turns green, but even now it is clear that this is an extremely luxurious place. On the right, some building under construction is visible, and in the center is the main three-story villa. It has 20 rooms, with a total area of 774 square meters (about 8,330 square feet). Behind the villa, on the slope, an olive grove can be seen.
Let us circle the house. The enormous size of the villa and the terrain become clearer. For convenience during walks, they even built their own staircase.
And we can see what made this villa so beloved to the Matviyenko family: the view. It is simply stunning—nothing but greenery, the endless sea, and no exploding shells. There is also a huge 20-meter-long pool (about 66 feet); right now, because it is winter, it is slightly neglected, but when the weather turns warm it will be in full splendor.
This is a perfect place to begin proving that this is indeed the Matviyenko family's real home. Let us stop here. We open the first photo from the Instagram account of Yulia Matviyenko—Valentina Matviyenko's daughter-in-law. This picture from August 2019, with the very recognizable shape of the pool, was taken right here.
Here is a photo taken in July 2019. On the left is a huge planter with some kind of palm, in the center are steps, and on the right something round on the ground. There it is in our shot. Not as pretty, but then again, it is not July outside.
Next, let us look at this photo with a cute little dog. It was taken here in August 2018. We can see a square planter, a slightly protruding parapet, and most importantly, a staircase with distinctive railings surrounded by planters.
Now let us go back another two years and examine these two similar photos. They show the now familiar view of the slope and the sea, as well as the concrete surface.
The photos were taken right here; a couple of the planters are still standing in the same place.
It is very difficult to estimate how much this villa is worth—there is not a single house in this area with a plot of a quarter of a million square meters. Here is a villa for sale with a house of similar size, but on a plot eight times smaller and located far from the water. It costs €3.6 million.
So the Matviyenko villa can, with a clear conscience, be valued at no less than €10 million—about 1 billion rubles.
It is precisely here, on the Adriatic coast, in a huge villa with its own shoreline, that it is so easy not to think about immediate problems and hardships, not to think about bombings and Russia's ruined economy, but instead to think lofty thoughts—about a peaceful sky above you, the "Russian world," and final victory over nonexistent Ukrainian fascists.
It is there in Pesaro that it is so convenient—and above all so peaceful—to sit back and simply collect hundreds of millions a year from state contracts to repair sewer systems in Russia's two main cities. And to watch mother's patriotic speeches.
These people have seized our country. The war is literally being fought on two fronts—on the Ukrainian front and at home, against us. Here, people like Matviyenko, under cover of pathetic grand speeches, are turning our country into a poor outcast. Because of their inexplicable, sick fantasies about conquering the world, people grow poorer every day and lose their money.
Pensions are being frozen for retirees who are paying more and more every day for medicine and food—for what? For this! For the villa in Pesaro. So that the children of Putin's elite can have the chance to live anywhere they want—anywhere except the country their parents rule.
People like this must not govern our country. Matviyenko, Putin, their entire Security Council, and the bureaucrat-oligarchs are criminals. And now war criminals as well. We must get rid of them, take away the power they acquired by chance, and stop this mad, unnecessary war that brings nothing but grief and poverty.
This is Putin's war. Putin is not Russia. And every one of you must say that out loud. Take part in acts of civil disobedience, protest, say no loudly, fight propaganda and criminal власть, share this and other videos. Tell the truth. We must stop this, and we can.
Freedom for Alexei Navalny. Freedom for Russia.