Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny accused Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev of massive corruption in a report accompanied by a Youtube video posted on Thursday.
“The interactive website and video (with English subtitles) tell the story of the corrupt empire of the chairman of the government of the Russian Federation and the United Russia party Dmitry Medvedev,” it states.
Medvedev has built a lavish empire of mansions, country estates, luxury yachts, an Italian vineyard and an 18th-century palace in St. Petersburg, the Kremlin’s most vocal critic and anticorruption crusader said, The NY Times adds:
Navalny used official registry records to expose what he calls a convoluted network of trustees, charity funds and offshore companies that are nominally owned and managed by associates of Mr. Medvedev, some of them classmates from law school.
The associates controlled charity funds that amassed vast sums of money donated by some of the wealthiest Russian businessmen or borrowed from state-owned banks that were used to buy the properties, the report said. The donations, Mr. Navalny said, were bribes and the network an elaborate scheme to disguise Mr. Medvedev’s ownership.
“The real owner of the assets is almost impossible to trace because by being registered to charity foundations, they essentially belong to no one. Medvedev’s property is managed by his friends, schoolmates, and trusted people,” Navalny alleges in the investigation.
