According to the investigation, in 2018 “Mitakom” transferred 30 million rubles to the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, and in 2021 the Greens party received 43.3 million rubles from this structure. In the gubernatorial election in the Ryazan region in 2017, “Mitakom” allocated 6 million rubles to the Socialist candidate Sergey Pupkov, who ultimately won less than 1.5%.
The same structure, according to “Project”, also financed candidates from the authorities. In the Moscow mayoral election in 2018, Sergei Sobyanin’s campaign fund received 7.5 million rubles, and Maksim Reshetnikov received 3 million rubles in 2017, when he was running for governor of Perm Krai.
“Project” links “Mitakom” to Natalia Orlova, who heads the financial bloc of United Russia as deputy head of the party’s central executive committee and has been a State Duma deputy since 2021. According to the investigation, a Border Service data leak shows her flights on business jets together with the foundation’s director, Yevgeny Shchegolev — to Germany in 2018 and to Italy in 2019.
Shchegolev’s biography on the Oryol Agrarian University website says that he heads the department responsible for ensuring interaction with the party’s deputy groups in the administration of financial and economic support of the United Russia CEC. In 2021, the CEC included Orlova and Shchegolev in the same group of five authorized representatives of United Russia on financial matters in the State Duma election.
Another fellow traveler of Orlova on such flights was Zinaida Kavaliauskaitė. “Project” calls her Orlova’s likely daughter, and the leaks show her work at “Mitakom” and in structures linked to United Russia, including the company “Institution ‘Management Directorate’”. Kavaliauskaitė owns the company “SVK ‘Stimul’”; until 2012, Orlova was a co-owner, and the firm itself develops the “My Elections” platform.
