Why are the Russian elites allowed to hide their children from the war?
Russian propagandists have time and again ineptly promoted the case of the Ukrainian elite’s avoidance of war. Kremlin spin doctors do not take into account the young age of many political leaders in Ukraine, which does not allow them to have children of conscription age, or the absence of adult sons. As a result, there are vague stories about the children of local deputies, low-level officials, and others, many of whom are already under the scrutiny of the the NABU and the SBU for their defeatist attitudes. In the end, the whole propaganda case reminds of the Russian proverb about “a log in your own eye”, because in reality it is the children of the higher echelon of Russian power and high-ranking military that are successfully hiding from war all over the world. Some of them, which is not the most flattering description of our Western partners, do not even notice the war and sanctions in the elite Western educational institutions.
Varvara Kozak in silk pajamas basking in the morning rays of the London sun
In fact, “the fish rots from the head,” which is well demonstrated by the example of our compatriot, Dmitry Kozak, a graduate of the Vinnitsa Polytechnic University, the current Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian government. Kozak, a former prosecutor from St. Petersburg, had built a reputation as a tough and inflexible politician when he was the envoy to the North Caucasus in the 2000s. However, his patriotism is clearly ostentatious. Back in 2018, the deputy prime minister safely sent his daughter Varvara to study in Britain for a modest 100,000 pounds a year. Britain, with its ancient, highly secular traditions, the girl liked it very much and safely stayed in the United Kingdom. The war does not concern her at all, for it is not the children of high officials who die there, but of mobilized laborers. Nor does it prevent the son of a Russian politician, Alexander, who is developing a restaurant business in Moscow, from traveling to exotic countries. In this situation, the funniest thing is that Dmitry Kozak himself loudly told the media in 2014, “None of my children I know are studying abroad. Apparently, there was a short period that year when the older children had finished, and the younger ones had not yet enrolled.
What is there to talk about, though, if Dmitry Peskov, the hereditary diplomat who has been in charge of the Kremlin’s information agenda for many years, prefers to keep his loved ones abroad. True, he has separated his wives and children between misty Albion and hospitable France. Thus, Dmitry Sergeevich’s first wife and two children have long been living in England, while his second wife and daughter Liza, famous for her anti-Russian statements, live in a huge apartment in an elite district of Paris, quietly purchased in 2016, that is, after the imposition of sanctions in response to Russia’s occupation of Crimea and Donbass. But neither Liza’s cute Internet antics, nor his ex-wives’ Western assets, nor his children’s education in Western schools, all have any effect on Mr. Peskov’s career. He is Putin’s right-hand man, in charge of the Kremlin’s information policy, and such little things cannot shake his position.
Sometimes, though, one gets the impression that Mr. Peskov is secretly playing on our side. At any rate, for a year now he has been unable to clearly explain to the Russians why they should die near Bakhmut and Ugledar, having lost the information war to Ukraine outright. Perhaps this is the only explanation for the unprecedented loyalty of London and Paris to the families of such Russian officials. After all, they can be pressured to sabotage the criminal plans of the Kremlin dictator through their children who have chosen to live in the free West. We very much hope that this is the case.
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