New UK sanctions hit Lavrov where it hurts most: his glamorous stepdaughter hidden in London

The United Kingdom advanced further against the Russian hierarchs and oligarchs and their luxurious life in London. And in the last few hours he decided to lash out at a key man of the Kremlin's decision circle: Sergei Lavrov. The foreign minister of Moscow had already been hit by international sanctions, but he did not expect that the government of Boris Johnson would take up the claims to also reach with economic and financial admonitions to the family that he allegedly hides in the British capital.

In recent hours, the United Kingdom has sanctioned 59 Russian and six Belarusian individuals and companies due to the invasion of Ukraine. Among the companies are the Russian diamond giant Alrosa and the private military services group Wagner. But among the people there is one that weighs particularly on Lavrov's heart - his stepdaughter Polina Kovaleva.

The story

Maria Pevchikh, a star investigative journalist responding to Alexei Navalny's NGO, recalled just 14 days ago the double life of the atildado Russian chancellor. In a long thread of messages published on his Twitter profile -where he is followed by nearly 200,000 people-, Pevchikh exposed some of the information that his organization brought to light on September 16, 2021 and exceeded 8 million views on YouTube. It was titled “Yates, Bribes and a Mistress. What Minister Lavrov hides” and generated a scandal within Russia.

“I would like you to meet Polina Kovaleva,” Pevchikh wrote in reference to Lavrov's stepdaughter. “Polina is a glamorous 26-year-old Russian girl from London. He lives in a huge apartment in Kensington and loves to party, his Instagram feed looks like a non-stop vacation. That's not unheard of, but there is one small detail... Polina is the stepdaughter of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Yes, THAT Lavrov. He is one of Putin's closest allies, his faithful talking head full of hot air and now also a war criminal,” begins his story Pevchikh.

The story then began to be replicated throughout the British media. The Times newspaper resumed the investigation of Navalny's team, now a political prisoner of the Kremlin. “The Life in London of Sergey Lavrov's Stepdaughter” then titled the London newspaper and reviewed the demands that exist in the United Kingdom for the sanction of her mother - the “official” Svetlana Polyakova, the hidden wife - and the young woman who managed to buy a luxury apartment for several million dollars when she was 21 years and no known work. Those requests were finally met.

Lavrov is one of the top references in the Kremlin. And one of the strongest defenders of the invasion of Ukraine, to the extent of denying that Moscow had attacked the neighboring country and justifying the atrocities committed by the invading forces, such as the bombing of a maternal and child hospital in Mariupol. In his arguments, he often rants against the West and its way of life and politics. Contradictory: his hidden family enjoys the benefits of the democracies he claims to deny.

“Lavrov accused the United Kingdom of using chemical weapons TWICE. The first time he claimed that the United Kingdom staged Salisbury poisoning. And more recently he publicly accused me of poisoning my boss, Navalny with Novichok at the request of the UK secret services, for which he said I work,” the journalist recalled, adding: “She gave numerous speeches about the evil Anglo-Saxon world and the horrible liberal Western countries that want to destroy Russia and Ukraine. Then why the hell does your stepdaughter live in central London? Why not in Crimea or Donbass, why don't you move there? ”.

“Lavrov has had an 'official' wife for 50 years. However, no one has heard of it or seen them together in public for years. Unlike this lady, Svetlana Polyakova. She is the real wife, they have been together since the early 2000s. Unlike Lavrov's official wife, that woman is lined. He bought an apartment in Moscow valued at 6-8 million dollars. In the photo below you can see Svetlana's car collection. Not bad for an unemployed woman,” said Pevchikh. It's just that the lucky London tourist is not known a formal job. He only appears in photographs accompanying Lavrov at a meeting in the Kremlin.

The journalist of Navalny's investigative team continued: “Svetlana also accompanies Lavrov on all official foreign affairs trips. Sometimes he even takes his 78-year-old mother and niece. The whole family is listed as a member of the diplomatic mission. We have found out that Polyakova has used the Ministry's plane more than 60 times.”

Polina is Polyakova's daughter. From a previous marriage of the woman. Lavrov, apparently, adopted her. He took it as if it were his own daughter becoming a weakness for the veteran diplomat. “Our glamorous Londoner Polina is her daughter from a previous marriage. Here are the photos Polina took at her mother's house in Moscow. There are portraits of Lavrov on the table, very nice. In the third photo you can see Lavrov himself in flesh and blood.”

All material shared by Pevchikh is documented with Kremlin archives, photographs and travel records. The Times, for its part, stopped in the life of the stepdaughter, who could very soon be hit by economic sanctions and be left without the apartment she enjoys in Kensington. “Kovaleva attended a private boarding school in Bristol before earning a first-class bachelor's degree in economics with politics at Loughborough University and, subsequently, completing a master's degree in economics and business strategy at Imperial College London,” the British media reported.

Subsequently, the young woman was lucky: she immediately started working for Gazprom, the Russian energy giant. There he contributed his knowledge acquired in the West to help in the area of mergers and acquisitions. He later worked at Glencore, a mining company.

“Before buying his own house, he lived in Holland Park, west London, in an apartment in a terraced house that, according to The Times, is owned by the Russian embassy. Records show that the nearby Ukrainian embassy alleged that Russia had wrongly claimed ownership of the property. Kovaleva now lives in an apartment that, according to Land Registry documents, she bought for £4.4 million without a mortgage in 2016, when she was 21 years old, in a block just off Kensington High Street. She shares the apartment with a man, who is believed to be her partner, who also has a 10% stake in the investment firm she now runs,” the newspaper revealed.

Pevchikh continued in more detail the fascinating hidden history of the Russian Foreign Minister: “Polina and Lavrov's mother have been together for about two decades. Polina's biological father isn't super rich. She doesn't have an oligarch husband. But at the age of 21 he bought this apartment in London, on Kensington High Street, for 4.4 million pounds. He paid in cash. No mortgage. £4.4m. Can someone explain how this is possible? His only source of money is his unemployed mother who happens to be Lavrov's informal wife. This is the textbook example of unexplained wealth. Property can be legally seized right now.”

“Polina and her mother must be sanctioned. Polina has to pack her Louis Vuitton bags, say goodbye to her British life and leave the UK. If she is unable to explain where she got the 4.4 million pounds, her assets must be seized under the Unexplained Wealth Order procedure,” said the journalist.

Perhaps for advice - or out of modesty - Polina decided to delete her social media profiles after Russia decided to invade Ukraine. However, sanctions came to his life which he must take an unexpected turn. You'll have to move your glamour routine to Moscow. At least until his stepfather tells him to.

KEEP READING: