Claim that Kremlin spokesman’s son fought with Wagner seems to falter: “His Tesla was flashed twice in Moscow during that period” | War Ukraine and Russia

Prigozhin launched the claim in an interview published last Friday. He did not explicitly name Nikolai Peskov, but his description made it clear that he was Dmitri Peskov’s son. For example, the person in question had spent part of his life in the US or the UK. Nikolai Peskov lived in London for ten years – under the name Nikolai Choles – and returned to Russia in 2011 or 2012.

According to Prigozhin, father Dmitry Peskov turned to him in the summer of last year with a request to let his son participate in the war in Ukraine. Prigozhin is said to have deployed Nikolai “with forged documents” – read: under a different name – near Luhansk. After training and six months of “exemplary” service, the young man is said to have returned to Russia and enjoyed a holiday.

In an interview with the Russian tabloid ‘Komsomolskaya Pravda’, Nikolai said that at the beginning of the invasion his father helped him to establish contact with the Wagner group and that he saw it as his duty to enlist. He would not say what name he would fight under, but he did say that he received a medal for the courage he showed during an operation. He declined to comment on the operation, too. He further called the Wagner mercenaries “friendly” and claimed that he would like to return to the front.

The interview is in stark contrast to an earlier media appearance by the young man. In September last year, images surfaced on social media of a Russian journalist linked to opposition leader Alexey Navalny claiming he called Nikolai Peskov. He had pretended to be a soldier who wanted Nicolai to report for mobilization. However, the man he called made it clear that this would not happen and that he would solve it “on a different level”. It was not possible to verify the authenticity of the video, but experts say the man’s voice sounded like Nikolai Peskov’s.

In the interview with “Komsomolskaya Pravda,” Peskov admitted that he had received a call from the journalist, but that at that time he was preparing for his shift and had simply been nervous.

LOOK. This is the painful call in which Nikolai Peskov is supposedly called for mobilization

Many media therefore strongly doubt that the young Peskov would have been drawn to the front for six months. According to the popular Telegram channel VChK-OGPU, his Tesla Model X was flashed in Moscow on July 23 and November 6 last year, among others. This is evident from camera images. According to friends, it would be Nikolai’s favorite car and he would always drive it himself. “We have every reason to believe that this was now also the case,” the channel said. Peskov would also have committed a pile of other violations.

Images shared by Russian presenter and propagandist Vladimir Solovyov, which allegedly show a disguised Nikolai Peskov at the front in Soledar, have also been met with disbelief. The images are said to have been taken in January this year and show a masked Russian soldier.

However, Wagner mercenaries would not have seen Nikolai at the front: “Neither near Soledar, nor near Bachmoet”, it sounds. And according to personal acquaintances, young Peskov was not absent from Moscow for a long time, as VChK-OGPU knows.