Alexei Navalny talking about Dmitri Peskov on his video today

by Sarah Hurst

Dmitri Peskov, the moustachioed press secretary for Vladimir Putin, purchased an apartment on Place Victor Hugo in Paris for his ex-wife Catherine Solotsinskaya and daughter Liza Peskova for 1.8 million euros in September 2016, Alexei Navalny claims in his latest video. Navalny found Solotsinskaya’s address in the online Paris phone book and then looked up the details of the property, which has four bedrooms.

Solotsinskaya and Peskova have not been shy about showing off their lavish lifestyle on social media, despite the fact that neither appears to have a job. Navalny showed that Solotsinskaya has repeatedly stated that she is unemployed. So it is not clear on what basis they were even permitted to emigrate to France. Peskova has been ridiculed for coming back to Russia briefly to announce that she was planning to help develop the shipbuilding industry.

Peskov’s playboy son was jailed in UK 

Peskov himself has also been living in luxury, wearing expensive watches, driving a Tesla and honeymooning on a yacht belonging to an oligarch. He married Olympic champion ice dancer Tatyana Navka in 2015, and has said that his wealth comes from her. The son of Peskov and Solotsinskaya, Nikolai Choles, went to school in the UK and was jailed for assaulting a man in Milton Keynes in 2010. Navalny showed earlier this year that he now lives a playboy lifestyle in Moscow.

“We don’t like when an obvious thief, bribe-taker and corrupt person represents our country. He’s one of the most famous public figures in Russia,” Navalny said of Peskov in his video. “We insist that now, in the election year, either Peskov himself or his boss Putin gives a clear and detailed explanation of this surprising fact about this enrichment. We are citizens of the country, we pay taxes, we have the right to receive answers to our questions. But I’m more than sure that as before there will be no sensible replies from Peskov or especially Putin, for the simple reason that they don’t see a problem with corruption,” he concluded.