FILE № 03 / 02
MEDVEDEV, D. A.
DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL
Official press-service photograph, used as published with tonal correction only.
— BIOGRAPHY · CONTEXT · ASSETS
WHO THIS IS
Editorial summary for the international reader. Documented facts cite their original investigations — full Russian-language sources are linked in the registry.
A St. Petersburg lawyer brought into Putin's orbit in the 1990s, Medvedev served as Putin's chief of staff (2003–2005) and First Deputy Prime Minister (2005–2008). When the Russian Constitution barred Putin from a third consecutive term in 2008, Medvedev was elected president while Putin became prime minister — the «tandem» that allowed Putin to return to the presidency in 2012. Medvedev then served as prime minister from 2012 to 2020.
His 2008–2012 presidency was marketed in the West as a window of «modernisation» — the Skolkovo innovation hub, a brief reset with Washington, the call to «liberalise the economy». Domestically the security apparatus continued to consolidate. Since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Medvedev has reinvented himself as one of the most public hawks in Russian politics, repeatedly threatening the use of nuclear weapons against NATO, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and Poland on his Telegram channel.
The 2017 FBK investigation «He Is Not Dimon to You» — the most-watched political video in Russian YouTube history — documented an estate network registered through proxies and «charitable foundations» chaired by Medvedev's university classmates: the Miloyovka estate near Plyos (≈ $275 mn), Italian Tuscan vineyard, two yachts, and several Sochi residences. The investigation triggered the largest opposition protests since 2012; Alexei Navalny was imprisoned for organising them.
— OTHER CASES