CORRUPTION
Russia’s ex-president Dmitry Medvedev was once touted as a pro-Western reformer. He has since reinvented himself as one of Moscow’s most abrasive war hawks. The current deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council is highly active on social media, threatening Ukraine and NATO countries with nuclear annihilation. These rants, however loud, have become so routine that the media now largely ignores them. Meanwhile, Medvedev's hidden empire of “nonprofits” continues to grow, helping him acquire Western-made luxury items — including goods from the very countries he vilifies. The Insider uncovered that Medvedev's associates imported a British-made yacht into Russia in 2024. Our investigation also identified new companies linked to Medvedev’s friend from university, Ilya Yeliseyev, as well as a number of other “nominal” owners holding assets on behalf of the Kremlin official. Medvedev’s proxies are raking in profits from patriotic video games — and livestock farming.
The United Kingdom, often a target of Moscow’s inflammatory rhetoric, is a particular favorite of Medvedev’s. He has referred to the UK as Russia’s “eternal enemy” and fantasized about bombing London. Yet Medvedev’s disdain for the so-called “Anglo-Saxons” does not extend to their yachts.
“An island called Britain will likely sink in the coming years. Our hypersonic missiles will help if needed,” Medvedev declared in September 2024. However, mere months earlier, a yacht named Hurry Up, built the same year by Princess Yachts in Plymouth, England, had arrived in Russia. The yacht’s value is estimated at $4.3 million — nearly half a billion rubles at the current exchange rate.
According to customs data obtained by The Insider, the yacht was imported through the company Marinpoint («Маринпоинт») and delivered to Russia’s National Maritime Program Support Fund. This fund is managed by Dmitry Ustratov, an employee of a security company who also serves as CEO of Alter IFC JSC (АО ИФК «Альтер»). The beneficiary of Alter is Medvedev’s classmate Ilya Yeliseyev, who also chairs the fund's supervisory board and serves as Medvedev's asset manager.
Hurry Up is not the only yacht tied to Dmitry Medvedev. In 2023, a second vessel, the GV, valued at $5 million, was also delivered for his use. Customs records named the ship’s captain, Anatoly Naumov, as the recipient. However, when contacted by journalists from the independent Russian publication Verstka, who posed as customs officials, Naumov confirmed that the yacht was intended for Medvedev.
Yeliseyev’s company, Alter, also owns the rights to the computer game Partisans 1941, released in 2020.
Ustratov is also a co-founder of Beryozki, a game development company. However, judging by the studio's social media presence, its projects have not been particularly successful.
In 2022, Beryozki reported it was developing a game with the working title 'Into the Abyss.'
Ustratov acts as a front for Medvedev in the agricultural business — he is listed as the owner of the Ivanovo-based NITS TP («НИЦ ТП») and Kostroma-based Vasilyovo («Василëво»). The latter has fulfilled state contracts, supplying milk, cows, bulls, and pigs for slaughter to institutions run by the Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) — Russia’s government agency in charge of prisons. Vasilyovo’s areas of business include crop and livestock farming, with the company keeping a herd of 900 cattle. It was also named a regional leader in milk production last year.
Medvedev's interest in livestock farming has been public knowledge since Alexei Navalny's 2017 investigation Don’t Call Him Dimon («Он вам не Димон»), which exposed the ex-president's use of charitable organizations for personal gain.
The National Maritime Program Support Fund received donations totaling 2.3 billion rubles in 2023, according to its financial reports. However, finding evidence of the organization’s “charitable” activities proved to be harder than tracking down the yacht Medvedev bought.
The foundation lacks a website, and the only significant mention of its work in the media pertains to a donation of equipment for “youth in Kherson” — referring to the southern region of Ukraine occupied by Russia since 2022. The supplied items in that example included a boat motor for a rescue vessel, kayaks, windsurfing boards, paddles, life jackets, computers, interactive boards, and video projectors for a youth maritime club.
Medvedev-linked foundations, which the United Russia chairman uses to fund his lavish lifestyle and which Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF) previously revealed are typically financed by oligarch donations and corrupt schemes, saw their budgets grow last year.
The Insider also noted that a new foundation — CentrInvestFund (Центринвестфонд) — was registered in 2023 as part of Medvedev’s pseudo-charity empire. The foundation received 15.3 billion rubles from an undisclosed source.