Putin's Friend's Son Turned Out To Be Russia's Highest-paid Propagandist

Those who incite war receive tens of millions of Russian rubles a month.

Kirill Kovalchuk, son of Mikhail Kovalchuk, head of the Kurchatov Institute, and nephew of billionaire Yuri Kovalchuk, both of whom are part of Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, topped the list of Russia’s highest-paid propagandists, compiled by “Versтка” based on leaked data. Kovalchuk has worked at the “National Media Group” (NMG) since 2008, and since 2014 has held the position of president of the holding company, a role created specifically for him. According to the publication, his annual income exceeds 628 million rubles. He receives several tens of millions of rubles more from his uncle’s organization—ABR Management, the management company of Bank Rossiya—writes The Moscow Times.

Second place went to the head of Gazprom-Media Holding Alexander Zharov, with an annual income of about 470 million rubles. Third place went to Svetlana Balanova, CEO of NMG, with an income of over 400 million rubles.

Among TV hosts, Nikita Mikhalkov leads the pack—the host of “Besogon” on the “Rossiya” channel earns more than 270 million rubles a year. He has over 2.5 billion rubles in various bank accounts, which generate about 515 million rubles in interest annually. Dmitry Simes, host of “The Big Game” on Channel One, earns about 8 million rubles a month, and his total income over nearly four years on the job has exceeded 291 million rubles. Artem Sheinin, host of “Time Will Tell,” earns about 5.6 million rubles a month and has accumulated more than 230 million rubles in deposits. RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan earns about 3 million rubles a month in the media, but according to investigative reports, her actual income is significantly higher thanks to multi-billion-ruble government contracts.

The incomes of war correspondents and pro-military bloggers are noticeably more modest. The wealthiest among them is Boris Rozhin, author of the Colonelcassad channel, who rarely travels to the front lines and earns about 2.6 million rubles a month. His main source of income is the production company “Teleprofil,” which produces programs for “Channel One.” Evgeny Poddubny, one of VGTRK’s leading war correspondents, earns about 1 million rubles a month. The average income of war correspondents and pro-war bloggers does not exceed 500,000 rubles.

The publication notes that the distribution of income within the Russian propaganda system follows the same principle as in the rest of the system: the closer one is to the Kremlin, the higher the earnings. Military correspondents and pro-military bloggers account for only 6% of the total income of the 63 propagandists included in the study. TV hosts received about a quarter of all funds, while media executives received more than half. The total annual income of all participants in the ranking amounted to 3 billion rubles, with exactly half of that amount going to the three richest media executives.

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