Transparency International asked Putin to check the conflict of interest in Medvedev's use of the estate in Mansurovo

The Russian branch of Transparency International sent a request to President Vladimir Putin, as Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Council, to check the conflict of interest in Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev's use of a guest house in the Kursk village of Mansurovo. The document was published on the organization's website.

The organization cites publications in the newspapers Izvestia and Kommersant that Medvedev repeatedly stayed in a guest house owned by JSC Agrocomplex Mansurovo. The chairman of the board of directors, Medvedev’s friend and classmate Ilya Eliseev spoke about this.

Eliseev also holds the post of deputy chairman of the board of Gazprombank, to which the government provided financial assistance in 2014 and 2015. “We believe that Dmitry Medvedev’s use of the property of the Mansurovo Agricultural Complex and friendly relations with Ilya Eliseev could affect the impartial performance of the duties of the Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation on the distribution of state financial assistance in the banking sector, and we see in this situation signs of a conflict of interest,” it says in a message from TI. “ At the same time, we do not know whether Dmitry Medvedev notified the Presidential Anti-Corruption Council about it.”

If a conflict of interest is confirmed, the organization reminds of the option of removing Medvedev from the post of Prime Minister with the wording “for loss of trust.”

Dmitry Medvedev and his friend Ilya Eliseev became defendants in an investigation by the Anti-Corruption Foundation, which alleged that the prime minister actually owns estates, vineyards and yachts through non-profit foundations.