Wife of former attorney general’s son releases ‘desperate’ YouTube video demanding divorce and warning of threats against her child custody

Marina Chaika, the wife of former Attorney General Yuri Chaika’s eldest son, Artyom, has released a video message where she asks her husband to return her passport and grant her a divorce. The footage appeared on the YouTube channel of entertainer and women’s rights activist Ekaterina Gordon, who’s legally representing Marina Chaika.

“I’m making this appeal out of desperation,” Chaika says in the video. “I’m just a woman who wants to divorce her spouse. We lived together for 21 years. We have four children… Now our quiet family life is under threat. I don’t share any property with him. I don’t want anything from my spouse. I just want him to give me my passport. I haven’t had it for two months now. Because of this, I’ve had to go to court… I just know that my family is being threatened and there have been promises to take away the children. Child services have made it clear that they’ll defend my husband in court. I’m asking the press and everyone to support me,” Marina Chaika says in the YouTube video.

Artyom Chaika is a businessman and the son of Yuri Chaika, Russia’s former attorney general, now serving as Vladimir Putin’s presidential envoy in the North Caucasian Federal District. Chaika’s two sons, Artyom and Igor, gained notoriety several years ago when Alexey Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation released an investigative report revealing that Artyom Chaika may have been involved in an illegal business takeover. Navalny’s group later discovered that property registered to Chaika’s sons was listed in public records under the gibberish names “ЛСДУ3” and “ЙФЯУ9” (LSDUZ and IFYaU9), before it was re-registered to “Value Missing.”