Proekt investigation finds Russian officials flying on private jets apparently provided by oligarchs whose industries they oversee
Proekt has published an extensive investigation into senior Russian officials’ use of private jets. Its journalists examined a database from the border service of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) that leaked in 2023. It contained records of more than 100 million people who left Russia by air or other means in 2014–2023. The reporters spent a year analyzing international flight records for 1,064 senior Russian officials. We briefly summarize the investigation’s most important findings.
- Of those 1,064 officials, 322 fly abroad on business jets. Most do so regularly. Flights cost an average of $32,000.
- Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) leader Leonid Slutsky and Tatarstan head Rustam Minnikhanov fly most frequently on business jets. In 2014–2023, each man and his relatives took a combined 350–360 such flights.
- A total of 101 senior officials fly at someone else’s expense on planes likely provided by prominent businesspeople. Officials also have no qualms about using business jets registered to state-owned companies for personal trips.
- Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov took the most flights with oligarchs. Sergey Kiriyenko, the Kremlin’s first deputy chief of staff, flew with his family to the Maldives on a Rosatom jet.
- Russian officials even travel to Mount Athos on private jets. These VIP pilgrims include Kiriyenko, Moscow Governor Andrey Vorobyov, and former Prosecutor General Yury Chaika.
- France is the most popular destination for Putin’s elite. Seven of the 10 countries officials visited most frequently in 2014–2023 were in Western and Southern Europe.
- Russian officials fly with relatives, businesspeople, and even figures from the criminal underworld. Communist lawmaker Boris Ivanyuzhenkov, who once belonged to the Podolsk organized crime group, flew abroad with leaders of the Izmailovo, Podolsk, Chekhov, and Balashikha criminal gangs.
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Which ones?
Proekt analyzed data on foreign flights by 1,064 senior Russian officials (heads of the presidential administration and the government, governors, State Duma deputies, and Federation Council members), as well as their family members and more than 12,000 of their traveling companions. The journalists excluded commercial flights from this data, focusing only on business jets.