[imagesource: Instagram /  Elizaveta Peskova]

Having read that article about how Instagram selfies are coming back to haunt sanctioned Russian oligarchs, you’ll have met a few high-flying kids of the Kremlin.

There was Polina Kovaleva, who got herself sanctioned by the UK government after shamelessly posting pouting yacht snaps.

She was also found living it up at an Austrian ski resort and a beachside villa of a wealthy oligarch, according to the Anti-Corruption Foundation, which is founded by Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

She is Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s “stepdaughter”, in brackets because he has not officially married her mother.

Anyway, Kovaleva had her $5,8 million apartment, which she bought when she was 21 in one of London’s most expensive neighbourhoods, sanctioned.

She seems to have changed her name on Instagram, but here are screenshots:

The apartment is close to Imperial College, where she studied.

Lavrov’s more lowkey daughter, Ekaterina Vinokurova, also attended university outside of Russia – Columbia University in New York.

This brings us to a striking observation made by CNN – “While their parents publicly rail against the West, their kids grow up in the very countries whose societies they claim to reject.”

Indeed, as Kovaleva illustrates, the kids of the Kremlin are doing what Russian oligarchs, bastioned by Russian President Vladimir Putin, are supposed to regard as unpatriotic: spending their Russian millions on American and European soil:

Putin himself blasted Russians who may “mentally” align with the West in a speech last month, accusing them of thinking they are part of a “higher race” and working with the “collective West” toward one goal: “the destruction of Russia.”

“The Russian people will always be able to distinguish true patriots from scum and traitors and simply spit them out like a gnat that accidentally flew into their mouths,” Putin said.

Putin may say this publically, but what he does in his private life is close to the complete opposite.

Since two of Putin’s adult daughters have been sanctioned by the UK and the US, it has come to light that his daughters have been taking advantage of what the West has to offer.

There’s a villa in France and a $3,3 million apartment in the Netherlands involved.

Daniel Treisman, a professor specialising in Russian politics at the University of California, said what we’re all thinking in that it’s “obviously extreme hypocrisy”:

“They [Putin, the oligarchs, and their kids] may not even see a contradiction,” Treisman said.

“They believe that there’s this competition between the US and Russia, but why should that affect their daughter’s educational plans? Or where they have their chateaus?”

We have to also touch on Putin’s “loudest megaphone, one who on a near-daily basis dispenses the Russian President’s hardline vitriol against the West”. That would be his deputy chief of staff and chief spokesman, Dmitry Peskov.

Besides having his two adult children raised mostly in Western Europe, their luxurious lifestyles are far beyond his civil servant salary and “likely built on the ill-gotten wealth of Peskov’s connections to Putin”:

Based on property records, social media posts and traffic violation databases, the Anti-Corruption Foundation also revealed Peskov’s wife, ex-wife and children own luxury vehicles and multimillion-dollar homes all over the world — including Russia and France — a display of riches in stark contrast with the nearly 20 million Russians living in poverty.

Elizaveta Peskova, Peskov’s daughter from his second marriage, isn’t afraid of the limelight or controversy:

 

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A post shared by Elizaveta Dmitrievna (@lisa_peskova)

She apparently said that she feels “better in the European environment” and called Russia’s education system a “true hell” when speaking to a Russian TV outlet.

When you get to be schooled at Ecole des Roches outside Paris, where the tuition is sky-high and aviation classes are on offer, then yes, “better”.

There also seems to be a $2 million, 180-square-metre apartment “squeezed between the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe and the lush Bois de Boulogne” in the family.

Peskov’s eldest son, Nikolay Choles, also grew up outside Russia, in England. He’s been living his best life ‘funemployed’, flying private jets and racing luxury vehicles without a care in the world about the 116 traffic violations that he racked up.

Nice. Solid lessons are being learnt there.

Russians could be excused for thinking it’s one rule for us, and another for them.

[source:cnn]