They don’t abandon their own

Their loyalty is predicated on the fact that many of them owe their wealth directly to Putin himself, but is perhaps sustained by the influence and political clout members of Russia’s elite still have, which allows them to ensure their own children aren’t forced to do anything as degrading as fight in Ukraine themselves.

Indeed, it’s tempting to imagine just how differently the war in Ukraine might have gone had more of the Kremlin princelings been deployed to the front line much as their less privileged compatriots were.

Dmitry Medvedev’s son, Ilya, 29

Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s president from 2008–12 and its prime minister from 2012–20, now serves as the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, a national security advisory body to Putin. Medvedev has been unfailingly loyal to Putin and has never for a second hesitated to support his decision to invade Ukraine.

In recent years, Medvedev has received a lot of attention on social media for his lengthy, emotional tirades on Telegram in which he describes his unique vision of the world, in which a pure and holy Greater Russia attempts to combat the obsessive anti-Russian machinations of the Satanic United States and its lackeys, often leading him to make outlandish threats against the West.

Ilya Medvedev, his only son, graduated with a law degree from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, after which he planned to build a career abroad for himself in retail. However, according to Proekt, an independent investigative media outlet, shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion began, Ilya was forced to abandon his ambitions abroad and settle for a political career in Russia instead. Following in his father’s footsteps, Ilya joined the ruling United Russia party in 2022, formally accepting membership from the then deputy chairman of Russia’s upper house, the Federation Council, Andrey Turchak.

Since joining United Russia, Ilya has coordinated I am in Russia, a government service website for those living in the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine.

Although Ilya falls within the draft age for men conscripted into the Russian army, he has not served with the Russian military in Ukraine, and likely never will.

Putin’s son-in-law, Yevgeny Nagorny, 35

Yevegeny Nagorny, a Russian businessman working in the country’s lucrative gas industry, is reportedly married to Putin’s eldest daughter Maria Vorontsova. Vorontsova was previously married to Jorrit Faasen, a Dutch businessman whose property in the Netherlands was seized over his suspected sanctions evasion.

Nagorny is currently overseeing the construction of a gas pipeline in Russia’s northwestern Murmansk region funded by NOVATEK, a petroleum refinement company and Russia’s second-largest gas company. The owner of NOVATEK, Russian billionaire Leonid Mikhelson, is a long-time friend of Putin and has a long history of involving the president’s family in his business dealings.

Nagorny is a graduate of the Moscow University of Finance and Law and joined Putin’s circle in around 2016. No sooner had Nagorny become acquainted with Vorontsova than he was promoted at NOVATEK. Vorontsova and Nagorny are said to have a child together. Nagorny has not been deployed to Ukraine.

Kirill Shamalov, the ex-husband of Putin’s second daughter Yekaterina Tikhonova, who has a large financial stake in the petrochemical company SIBUR, has also avoided deployment to the front line. SIBUR has executed several defence contracts with the Russian military, including agreements that fund the production of rocket fuel and munitions for advanced missile systems.

Despite being a vocal supporter of the Kremlin’s war effort, Nagorny has not gone to the front, and remains sufficiently shielded by his connections to ever fear having to do so.

The Peskov boys

Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, has staunchly backed the war effort, calling the conflict “a war with the collective West”.

Peskov has two adult sons: Nikolay, 34 and Mika, 20. Although he has maintained that his eldest son signed a six-month contract with the Defence Ministry to fight in Ukraine, the evidence suggests otherwise. In September 2022, Russian journalist Dmitry Nizovtsev, then a member of the late opposition politician Alexey Navalny’s team, called Nikolay posing as a military official to ask if he was ready to be deployed. Nikolay said he wouldn’t attend the enlistment office, saying “it is not entirely right for me to be there”.

Seven months later, Russian propagandist Vladimir Solovyov published “exclusive footage” of Nikolay “on the front line” on his Telegram channel. Nikolay, whose reported service in the Wagner Group was attested to by its late co-founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin himself, has since told state-controlled media that he would like to return to the front. “Part of me wants to go back,” he said. But the few details that have been made public regarding his alleged deployment to Ukraine make its veracity appear highly dubious.

To complicate matters further, reports emerged in 2023 alleging that Peskov had been seen driving his Tesla around Moscow and had even received fines while he was supposedly deployed. Peskov is the primary driver of his Tesla, raising further doubts that he was really serving out a military contract. Moreover, artillerymen who served in the Wagner Group told the VChK-OGPU Telegram channel that Nikolay had not been seen anywhere on the front line.

Mika, Peskov’s younger son, has not publicly expressed any desire to serve in the Russian military, and his social media posts portrays the type of lavish lifestyle that's typical for the Russian elite.

Andrey Belousov’s son, Pavel, 30

“Russia continues its special military operation, and all of its goals will certainly be achieved,” Andrey Belousov, Russia’s recently appointed defence minister, said upon taking office, adding that “we are acting decisively and in proportion to security threats”.

Belousov’s 30-year-old son Pavel, is, like his father, a graduate of Bauman Moscow State Technical University, and runs a consulting firm with his wife. The firm, Claire&Clarté, reported profits that were 30 times higher in 2023 than they were in 2022, raking in almost 600 million rubles (€6.5 million). Among Claire&Clarté’s top clients are corporations and think tanks in the defence sector, as well as federal agencies that have contributed to the Kremlin’s war effort.

Pavel has maintained his position in defence consulting, thus helping to shape the war in Ukraine, but as of yet has not enlisted in the military.

Bastrykin’s boys

Alexander Bastrykin, the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, has three known adult sons: Yevgeny, Boris and Alexey. Yevgeny works as an assistant in the Presidential Office for Public Relations, Boris works as an advisor to Russia’s highest court and Alexey is currently studying at Moscow University of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia.

Alexey, the youngest at 19 years old, gave a speech at last year’s St. Petersburg International Legal Forum in which he defended Putin. Bastrykin, who was present at the forum, has been responsible for helping Putin amass power and keep the Russian people under surveillance; he has, unsurprisingly, been unfailingly pro-war.

“We are defending the interests of Russia and our fraternal Ukrainian people. This is a fight against the ideology of Nazism and fascism. This is one of the goals of the special military operation,” Bastrykin said at a lecture he gave at Alexey’s university.

Nonetheless, none of Bastrykin’s sons has gone to the front to fight for the values their father espouses.

Solovyov’s sons

Vladimir Solovyov is the most prominent of Russia’s scores of pro-war propagandists, whose chilling anti-Ukrainian rhetoric is showcased in his nightly primetime talkshow Evening with Vladimir Solovyov on the country’s main state broadcaster, Russia-1. A fervent supporter of the war and a die-hard Putin loyalist and ultranationalist, Solovyov has been under EU sanctions since 2022, when his sprawling villa on Italy’s Lake Como was seized by the Italian authorities.

Solovyov has two adult sons, Alexander, 36, and Daniil, 23. Alexander Solovyov graduated from the University of the Arts London and now produces commercials and music videos in Russia. Daniil also studied at a university in the UK and is now in Russia working as a model.

Although little is known about Solovyov’s other children, none appear to have gone to war, including Alexander and Daniil, both of whom currently live safely in Russia.

Mikhalkov’s grandsons

Celebrated Russian film director Nikita Mikhalkov, who won an Oscar for his epic historical drama Burnt by the Sun in 1995, is one of Putin’s most ardent supporters among Russia’s cultural elite.

“What our heroes, our compatriots, are doing at the front today is not simple and is not just a special operation. We are the only country that has stood up tall against real-world evil,” Mikhalkov said during a campaign event for Putin ahead of the stolen presidential election earlier this year.

Long a Kremlin loyalist, Mikhalkov remained unfazed by the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and has in fact redoubled his vocal support for the regime since then. At an appearance at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg last year, Mikhalkov said that the special military operation “was sent to us by God so that we would finally wake up”.

The director’s four adult grandchildren, Vasily Mikhalkov, 25; Pyotr Mikhalkov, 22; Andrey Bakov, 24; and Sergey Bakov, 23, have all remained in Russia, but none has enlisted in the military. Mikhalkov has refused to make public whether his grandchildren have received call-up papers.