by Marco Imarisio
A house in Moscow, 77 square meters, two cars, a camper. The incomes of the sanctionshit Putin and his ministers do not reflect their globally “frozen” wealth. Wives generally “earn” more
But what the largest yacht in the world, what Arabian Nights residences in Switzerland, on the Black Sea or any other exotic place. Citizen Vladimir Putin, for example. In 2021, the Russian President earned just 114,000 euros and declared to the tax authorities ownership of a 77squaremeter apartment in Moscow, two locally produced cars, a Volga compact car and a Niva SUV, as well as a trolley trailer of which they use for camping holidays.
His Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin is doing better, with an income of 18.3 million rubles, down slightly from last year, which still brings in 204,000 euros at the uncertain current exchange rate. Fortunately, he can count on his wife Vladlena Mishustina, who, even without recognized entrepreneurial activity, as the evil dissident Alexei Navalny denounced in 2020, brought home 64.5 million rubles, 721 thousand euros, so the family budget is exempt. What about former President and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, now VicePresident of the Security Council, who earns only 8.3 million rubles, equivalent to a modest 94,000 euros, a salary that would even exceed the 5star rating of the past?
And it could go on indefinitely. Fleeing politicians’ tax returns is an exercise in style, and not just in popular journalism. This was also the case in Moscow, where it was possible, even if investigations into the income of ministers and those in power always concerned their property abroad. But for months, the media around the world has been chasing the wealth of those affected by the sanctions enacted by the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union. And the first names of the recipients of these measures are almost always the same, starting with the three just mentioned. Therefore, the contrast between the total size of their supposedly hidden fortunes abroad and the income reported to their country’s tax authorities seems even more striking, at least to Western eyes.
The low level of Russian earnings of Putin and his ministers should not be misleading. The first 32 highranking officials of the Russian government, almost all deputies from United Russia, the president’s party, still earned over 65.7 million rubles in 2021, almost 5.5 million rubles a month, which works out to 66,000 euros a month at today’s exchange rate . And that in a country with one of the lowest average incomes in the world. The salary of a citizen of Russia today is around 40,000 rubles per month, 480 euros. The propensity of Kremlin leaders to accumulate their fortunes abroad creates an apparent paradox. It seems much cheaper to be a simplemajority peon in the Russian parliament than to be Putin’s adviser. MPs earn around 4.3 million rubles, 110 times the average salary of a Russian, while the earnings reported by Kremlin employees are only 28 times higher.
To trust the official statements, the richest of them all turns out to be Vladimir Medinsky, the former Minister of Culture, very loyal to Putin and head of the Russian delegation in the negotiations with Kyiv, who earns 107 million rubles, almost a million and 290 thousand euros , however, a decent jump compared to 2020 when he pocketed just 17.6 million rubles or 196,000 euros. But appearances are deceptive. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declares 12.6 million rubles, 141 thousand euros, with an increase of 2.5 million compared to last year, which will hardly make up for the expenditure of 2016, when Polina Kovaleva, the 21yearold daughter of her compagna, had for Bought £4.4m (€5.3m) a flat in London’s South Kensington in cash. Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, is also under fire from the sanctions, even as he settles on a home salary of 14.5 million rubles ($170,000), much less than his wife, former Olympic skating champion Tatiana Navka , authentic fall of the Peskov family with its 218.5 million, equal to 2.4 million euros. Given the Russian Patriarchate.
April 19, 2022 (Change April 19, 2022 | 09:30)
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