Text version
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Hi, this is Navalny, and I really want
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to make sure you are not deceived. And that is exactly what
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Putin will try to do in the near future.
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He is running for office again, and of course during
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his election campaign he will
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tell a lot of lies about how he is going to try
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to fight corruption, talk about some
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new measures, and put on an important show. But you should not
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believe a single word, because
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the proof that there is no real fight
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against corruption in Putin's state, and
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that there cannot be one, is shown to you right during
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his press conferences. No, no, it is not
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Putin himself—obviously he is the chief
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corrupt figure, but he certainly cannot
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fight himself. Well, perhaps if he
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wanted at least to demonstrate a desire
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to reduce corruption, then something would have happened
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to this character. We have already told you so many
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stories about this mustachioed
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golden antelope. It strikes the ground with its hoof and
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gold coins and luxurious real estate go flying everywhere
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as if in a fairy tale. Let me briefly remind you
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of what happened in the previous episodes before
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we move on to the new story. It all began
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with the watch worn by this man closest to Vladimir
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Putin. We accidentally
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noticed it on his wrist. It costs 37
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million rubles (about US$630,000 at the time), but to afford something like that he would actually
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have to work for several years. You would think
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that would mean resignation—there it is, corruption, illicit
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enrichment.
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But no, the Kremlin pretended it had not
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noticed anything.
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Then there was a honeymoon on the
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largest sailing yacht in the world, the *Maltese
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Falcon*. Renting one like that for a single week costs
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26 million rubles (about US$440,000 at the time). The trip was paid for
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by oligarch Ziyavudin Magomedov. Surely this time
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official Peskov was finished—an obvious
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bribe. But even here he managed to stay in
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his post. And then there was the house worth a billion
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rubles—a billion! For a government official, that should have been
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the final nail. Pack your bags,
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newlywed. But Peskov kept sitting
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next to Putin.
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This summer we released another
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investigation about our antelope—or rather,
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about his secret son Nikolai, a guy posing as
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an Englishman after having served time there in prison for
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assault and battery.
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And now he has found himself in the role of
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a Moscow socialite.
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We published a photo of Peskov's
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Tesla, which he drives, but
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registered in his son's name. We showed
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this son's luxury real estate, the Range
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Rover and Ferrari of this unemployed
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heir. And what did Peskov do? He literally
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said: my son's unexplained wealth
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is none of your business, got it? Keep quiet
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and know your place. And once again his bosses
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pretended not to notice anything. But
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we cannot let it go. I do not
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like it when an obvious thief, bribe-taker, and
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corrupt official represents our country. He
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is one of the most famous
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public figures in Russia. He is the person closest to
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the president; people watch him more closely than almost anyone else.
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They stay beside him while he works,
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searching his words for hidden meaning and
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echoes of Vladimir Putin's thoughts. That is exactly
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why his comments instantly
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spread all over the world. And lately Peskov
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has gotten into the habit
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of saying that all his
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unexplained wealth comes from the earnings
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of his wife. So we were looking for some case of
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corruption
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that definitely could not be written off as
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Tatyana Navka's income. And today we
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ask Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary
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to the President of Russia, to explain not only to us,
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not only to the Anti-Corruption Foundation, but to all the people of Russia:
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in this photo you see Elizaveta Peskova,
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Dmitry Peskov's daughter.
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The media write about her quite a lot, and she herself
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is happy to encourage that.
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She talks about what a wonderful
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aristocratic life she leads in
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Paris.
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She studies, travels, posts her
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photo shoots online, and in her spare time
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comes to Russia to teach us
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to love our homeland and to develop, as she puts it,
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the judicial system. We need
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to develop strategies, roughly speaking, for
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the PR of the judicial system. And she talks so much
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and lives such a beautiful life
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that sooner or later a logical question
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arises: where exactly does she live in Paris?
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How much does that housing cost, and are there not
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a certain huge mustache sticking out from behind it? How could we
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find out? At first we wanted to call
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Peskov himself, but then we thought: no,
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he will not tell us.
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[applause]
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So we had to find out ourselves. Meet
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Ekaterina Solotsinskaya, Peskov's ex-wife
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and Elizaveta's mother. After
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the divorce, Ekaterina and the children moved
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to Paris permanently, where
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she began her new French life
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from scratch and on her own. Looking at her
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Instagram, you can briefly get a taste of
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this independent and almost
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noble life of Ekaterina's. Here she is in
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some castles, here she is with counts, and here
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she is being inducted as a musketeer.
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I am serious. Here she is flying on a private
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jet, and here is Ekaterina in an interior with
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a marble fireplace, mirrors, and a lazy
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cheetah. Everything is luxurious. Let us take a closer look
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at her New Year's caption:
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"A new home. Today we had the new
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apartment blessed." The date: exactly one year ago,
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December 2016. Interesting, we thought at the Anti-Corruption Foundation,
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the Anti-Corruption Foundation.
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A new apartment is wonderful, and we started
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looking into it. Hard to believe, but
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the apartment’s secrecy did not protect it from
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our sharp eye.
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According to Christian canons, what we are
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doing is considered a grave sin.
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Not from ending up in an ordinary Paris
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phone directory, where you can
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simply type in the surname Salo
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tsinskaya and find Madame’s exact address
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Catherine: Avenue Victor Hugo. As
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you can see, it fully matches the geotags
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from Ekaterina’s Instagram.
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This, by the way, is a perfect illustration of
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the question of whether the Anti-Corruption
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Foundation
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gets its information leaked by the FSB or rival Kremlin factions
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or the CIA.
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No — you just open a phone directory, type
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the surname correctly, and that’s it.
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The investigation continues. We naturally
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ordered all the records and identified
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the exact apartment.
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We studied the documents and were stunned. The apartment
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is located in one of
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the most expensive districts of Paris, and its area is
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180 square meters (about 1,940 square feet). It has an entry hall,
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a living room, 4 bedrooms,
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3 bathrooms, a laundry room, and a balcony. It was purchased
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in September 2016 and registered to
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a French legal entity, Sirius. Seventy-five percent
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of it belongs to Ekaterina Salo
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tsinskaya-Peskova, and 25 percent to her
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daughter,
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Elizaveta “Liza” Peskova. But the most interesting part
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is the price: it amounts to 1 million
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770 thousand euros — that is 125
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million rubles. Where did Peskov’s daughter and
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ex-wife get 125 million rubles?
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Maybe it was paid in installments? We can check that too.
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1 million 300 thousand euros, that is, 73
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percent of the total cost, were
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paid immediately.
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The remaining 470,000 euros were taken out as
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a mortgage. You’ll laugh, but from VTB Bank,
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through its French subsidiary. Now that’s
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patriotism.
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Even the mortgage is Russian. True,
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the interest rate is not Russian but French: 2.7
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percent annually. You fools are the ones taking out mortgages
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from VTB on your modest two-room apartment at 12
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percent. In Paris,
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they would offer you far more
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favorable terms. From the apartment purchase agreement
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we also learn
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that all the funds, apart from the VTB loan, the former
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Peskov family declares as
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their own. We also learn that Ekaterina Salo
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tsinskaya-Peskova paid 100 thousand euros
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in taxes in France — one and a half times
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more than her last declared
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annual income in Russia. The contract also
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states that Madame Ekaterina Salo tsinskaya
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does not understand French and speaks
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only Russian. It also says that
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she has no profession. We have never seen anything like that in such
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documents before.
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And that she is divorced
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from Dmitry Sergeyevich Peskov. Thus,
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the legally documented story looks
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like this: a couple of years after divorcing
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Putin’s press secretary, his ex-wife
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and daughter end up in Paris, where they buy
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an apartment for themselves for almost two million euros,
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most of which they already have
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in their accounts. I think that by this point
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it is obvious to everyone that yes, indeed, behind
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this purchase there are some enormous mustaches sticking out.
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We could stop here — everything seems clear enough.
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But we have dealt with this slippery
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crook before, and with whole companies of people who
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will now rush to his defense.
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So let’s figure out for ourselves what they
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will try to lie to us about. Obviously,
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the first claim will be: Peskov’s wife earned this
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money herself in Russia and bought the apartment with
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her own funds.
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The second thing they might say, more exotic,
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is that she earned this money in France without
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knowing French.
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And the third version will be: what if she
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sold something here and used the proceeds
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to buy it there? Hypothesis 1.
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But this one is simple. Let’s look.
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Her declared income, Salo tsinskaya’s, from
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2009 to 2013, when she disclosed it
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as Peskov’s wife, ranged from two
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to six million rubles per year.
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That is clearly not enough to buy
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an apartment on Avenue Victor Hugo.
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On Putin Avenue in Grozny, maybe,
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but here —
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sorry — no way. Especially since in 2013
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Ekaterina became the happy owner
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of an 800-square-meter house (about 8,600 square feet) and
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a large plot on Rublyovka (an elite area outside Moscow). Even if
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for four years she neither ate nor drank, there would be
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nothing left for Paris at all.
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Hypothesis 2: she earned it in Paris. Let’s check.
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First, by her own account,
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Ekaterina was doing nothing. Then
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Ekaterina took part in the Franco-
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Russian Dialogue, a nonprofit organization
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which, incidentally, on the Russian
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side is headed by Putin’s close associate from
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the Ozero cooperative, Vladimir Yakunin.
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There is no way an NGO was paying her 100
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thousand euros a month. And her first major
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position in France was the post
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at the Russian Center for Science and Culture
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in Paris. Sounds good, yes — like some kind of
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major philanthropic
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project. But no: it is a subdivision
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of the state agency Rossotrudnichestvo,
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which in turn is part of the Ministry
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of Foreign Affairs. In other words, having moved
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to France for permanent residence,
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Peskov’s ex-wife became a state official.
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and keep living off our backs and
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our taxes, but at a government
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office she could never earn €2 million either.
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Hypothesis three: well, maybe she
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sold something? Definitely not. Among the more or less
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significant real estate she owned in Russia, she
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declared a 140-square-meter apartment in
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Moscow.
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But to this day it still belongs to her, and the house on
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Rublyovka (an elite residential area outside Moscow) that I already mentioned is also still in her name.
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So what other possibilities could there be?
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Did she find buried treasure? Win a song contest about
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love for Russia? Doesn’t seem likely. Let’s not
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kid ourselves. The only
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real possibility is that
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Peskov, a thief and bribe-taker, got divorced and gave
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his daughter and ex-wife several
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million euros to set up their new
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life. With that money they bought an apartment
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1.5 kilometers from the Eiffel Tower,
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pay for expensive education, flights,
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travel, an aristocratic lifestyle,
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and so on. There is no other way
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to explain it. And here the story completely
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repeats what happened with Peskov’s son, a guy
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who doesn’t even have a job or even
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a secondary education,
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but does have an apartment in central Moscow,
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a Ferrari,
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a Mercedes, a Range Rover, and even his own
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horse—not to mention the Tesla that Peskov himself
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drives. And we would very much like—
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in fact, we insist—that now, in this
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election year,
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either Peskov himself or his boss Putin
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give a clear and direct explanation for these
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astonishing facts
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of enrichment. We are citizens of this country; we
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pay taxes, and we have the right to get
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answers to our questions. But I am more than
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sure that, as before, there will be no
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coherent answer—none
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from Peskov, and certainly none from Putin—for one
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simple reason: they do not see corruption as a problem.
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On the contrary, they like it.
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That is exactly why they want to stay in power. And
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they even brag to each other about it: look,
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Vladimir Vladimirovich, what a place in Paris
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I bought for my ex. And that’s how the whole elite
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operates. If we found this apartment and
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figured out how much it costs,
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do you think the FSB (Russia’s security service) can’t do that? That the prosecutor’s office can’t
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do it? Of course they can, but
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they never will, because their goal is not
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to fight corruption
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but to protect corrupt officials and their money from us,
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from people like you and me. So don’t let yourselves be fooled.
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Every time Putin starts
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mumbling again about fighting corruption,
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remember who is sitting next to him.
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Subscribe to our channel, where
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they tell the truth.