Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council and a vocal critic of Western nations, has reportedly purchased a 3.5-million-pound (USD4.4 million, EUR4.2 million) luxury yacht manufactured in the United Kingdom.
The vessel, named Hurry Up, was produced by Plymouth-based Princess Yachts in 2024 and imported into Russia through a foundation allegedly linked to Medvedev, according to the investigative outlet The Insider.
The foundation, known as the Foundation for the Support of National Maritime Programs, facilitated the import through a related company, documents reveal.
The foundation is headed by Dmitry Ustratov, an associate of Ilya Yeliseyev, a long-time confidant of Medvedev and overseer of his financial interests.
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This is, at least to a large part, Russian propaganda. The regime needs to create an enemy for covering up its own incompetence, find a reason to start a war, and sending the country’s citizens to the meat grinder. But the ‘elite’ is enjoying Western lifestyle and sometimes even their ‘golden passports’. Many live in the West if and when they are not (yet) sanctioned. And while schools at home are becoming more and more indoctrination camps, the political elite and the oligarchs send their own children to Western schools and universities (one of Putin’s daughters lives in Paris, France, as media have reported these days, for example).