The Insider found that Medvedev's scandalous publications coincide with Italian wine delivery dates

As The Insider investigators found out, scandalous posts by the chairman of the Russian Security Council and former president Dmitry Medvedev appear online almost immediately after wine shipments to Russia from Medvedev's personal vineyards in Italy. As the publication emphasises, these deliveries continued despite the sanctions.

As the publication points out, the first delivery of wine after the beginning took place on 17 June 2022. The consignment with a total weight of 42 kilograms was transported by the Latvian company Wellman Logistics, and the recipient was Rue de Vin LLC, which belongs to the Rocky Coast JSC. Its founder is the Medvedev-controlled foundation Sotsgosproekt.

Two days after this shipment arrived, Medvedev wrote a post in Telegram in which he predicted the disappearance of the European Union and also called the head of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen an "aunt."

The next delivery took place on 18 July 2022. The wine was delivered to Russia by SIA Lionwine, a Latvian company, and the recipient was Moscow-based Lionwine LLC. The Insider notes that the bottles were imported as "samples." Just a few days later, Medvedev wrote a post listing the "sins" of the West, in which he called US President Joe Biden a "grandfather with dementia" and used the expressions "European fools" and "city lunatics" in reference to the European leadership.

A large shipment of wine from Italy was imported into Russia on 13 October 2022. Its total weight was about four tonnes. The wine was brought into the country by a major importer, Mistral Alco. A few days after that, Medvedev wrote a post about "Bandera freaks".

In January 2023, bottles also arrived from Medvedev's winery via MB Group Impex. Then, on 11 January, Medvedev's post appeared, in which he called European officials "wretched."

The publication notes that Rue de Vin also imports wine into Russia not from Medvedev's vineyards. In July 2023, the company bought a wine produced by Vinicola Mediterranea, which Medvedev wrote about the likelihood of a "nuclear apocalypse" shortly after it was delivered to Russia.

The other day, Dmitry Medvedev again drew attention with statements that would cause a healthy person shame and embarrassment. Wearing a blue Angela Merkel-style franken coat, he addressed the World Youth Festival and, among other things, called Europeans slaves and animals, accompanied by "photo jabs" with distorted faces of European leaders from his Telegram channel.

Journalists say that Medvedev owns the Tuscan winery Fattoria della Aiola. This business in Italy is registered through Cypriot offshore companies to Ilya Eliseyev, a classmate, confidant and close friend of Medvedev.

Eliseev is under sanctions from the US, UK, Canada, Ukraine, New Zealand, but not the EU. That is why he freely owns a winery in Italy, and Medvedev continued to get wine from there even after the outbreak of full-scale war.

The Insider's researchers write that perhaps putting Medvedev's vineyards on the sanctions list could reduce the level of toxicity on social media. But they note that Medvedev has his own winery in the Krasnodar region. It produces 150,000 bottles of wine a year.