FBK: Margarita Simonyan’s family received 736 million rubles over three years from government agencies and billionaire Vekselberg

editor-in-chief RT Margarita Simonyan, her husband Tigran Keosayan and their relatives received 736 million rubles into their personal bank accounts over three years under contracts with government agencies and billionaire Viktor Vekselberg. This is stated in the investigation of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, published on the website of politician Alexei Navalny.

As stated in the material, Simonyan and her relatives received money under advertising and PR contracts concluded with Aeroflot, the organizing committee of the 2018 FIFA World Cup, the Skolkovo Foundation, the FSB Veterans Foundation “Security and Legality” and Vekselberg personally.

In particular, money was transferred from the “Security and Legality” fund for monthly “PR support for the activities of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation in the media.” “You probably thought: “What? Why does the FSB fund pay such a huge amount of money for PR for the Ministry of Internal Affairs?” We have no logical explanation for this,” Navalny writes.

According to the oppositionist, Simonyan personally earned 328 million rubles from these contracts. 77 million rubles a year are transferred to her as the “artistic director” of the “International Sawmill” program broadcast on NTV. The host of this program is Keosayan.

FBK associates six companies with the Simonyan family. Danila Gromov, the son of the deputy head of the presidential administration Alexei Gromov, who oversees the work of the Russian media, also received money from one of them.

Simonyan told Snob that she not only works as the artistic director of the International Sawmill, but also writes scripts for it. She added that she is “related” to the production of other programs for federal channels. “This is my income, it is honest, taxes are paid on it,” says the editor-in-chief of RT .

In addition, she said that the company that makes “International Sawmill” has a contract with RT, and the TV channel “makes money from the program.” Simonyan also confirmed that International Sawmill is advertising for Aeroflot.

“I have not commented on Navalny’s statements ever since Navalny claimed that I gave birth in the USA, where I, of course, did not give birth and never intended to give birth,” she concluded.

Navalny denies that he spoke about Simonyan giving birth in the USA.

Updated at 9 p.m. Added commentary by Simonyan and Navalny.