On the 19th day of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, former president and former prime minister Dmitry Medvedev started a channel on Telegram, where he launched criticism at the West, in the style of a dockworker. Just two months after launching the channel, he became the second most popular Russian blogger after Ramzan Kadyrov, and by the end of 2022, he surpassed him. Medvedev now has more than 1.6 million subscribers, with an average reach of over 3.3 million views per post.
As discovered by the «System» project, the transformation helped funds associated with Medvedev. If up to and including 2022, the funds received from 2 to 8 billion rubles a year, in 2023 the contribution amount exceeded 50 billion rubles ($583 million), and in 2024 it amounted to almost 70 billion ($685 million).
At the same time, making a contribution to these funds is not an easy task. There is no publicly available information on the details for transferring funds to these funds. Only two out of 15 funds have active websites.
Another nuance is that the funds, close to the high-profile blogger, receive donations not only from outside but also from each other. However, the increase in contributions correlates with the growth of the funds' balances. In total, by the end of the year, they usually did not exceed 30 billion rubles ($380 million). By the end of 2023, the result was 78.6 billion rubles, and by the end of 2024, the funds close to Medvedev accumulated a record 86 billion rubles ($849 million).
The funds continue to acquire real estate and land. In December 2022, the company «Finkonsulting K» (FKK), belonging to a fund from Medvedev's orbit, acquired the management company «Makna». It managed the «Shingari» boarding house, seven minutes' drive from the «Rocky Shore» winery, directly owned by Medvedev, and a hundred meters from the sea. In February 2023, «Makna» was headed by the former general director of the winery, and in April the boarding house began to be demolished. Apparently, the new owner was interested not so much in the boarding house as in the land under it. In the «Shingari» area, FKK purchased eight plots with a total area of more than 2.5 hectares. Another 4.5 hectares are leased by «Makna».
«System» notes that the real estate and land plots assigned to the funds and used by Medvedev, as reported by Alexei Navalny in 2017**, remained with the organizations.
After Navalny's investigation was released, the «Dar» fund, close to Medvedev, was found to have 16 hectares in Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea coast. Subsequently, the plots were re-registered to another fund called «Nevsky», which is also associated with Medvedev's team. «Nevsky» continued to acquire property even during the war. In August 2023, the fund acquired a two-story cottage in the village of Komarovo near St. Petersburg. In 2024, «Nevsky»'s balance was again replenished with real estate in the vicinity of Petersburg. This time in Pavlovsk, where an estate and a two-story mansion were built.
* Recognized in Russia as a «foreign agent» and «undesirable» organization.
** Included in the list of «terrorists and extremists».