The British-educated son of Kremlin spokesman Dimitry Peskov is ordered by his father to serve as an artilleryman in Putin’s war in Ukraine
The son of a top Kremlin official was ordered by his father to serve as a lowly artilleryman in Putin’s war after he protested that he should not be drafted.
Nikolay Peskov, 32, was caught last year by journalists saying he would pull strings to avoid conscription.
But the head of the pro-Kremlin private army Wagner said his father — Putin’s longtime spokesman Dmitry Peskov, 55 — arranged for the British-trained Nikolay to be sent off to war.
It is a rare example of the son of a top official fighting in the conflict, even though it appears he was not on the front lines where tens of thousands of ‘cannon fodder’ Russians have died.
‘From all my acquaintances [in high circles] only one person [Dmitry] Peskov, once known as a complete liberal, asked me about his son who had spent part of his life… in England,” said Yevgeny Prigozhin, chief of Wagner, nicknamed Putin’s “chief.”
Nikolay Peskov, the eldest son of President Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov, served with Wagner mercenaries
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov attends the meeting of the Supreme State Council of the Union State of Russia-Belarus in Moscow
‘[Peskov] came to me and said: “Consider him a simple artilleryman”.
“He served like everyone else, knee-deep in mud and sh** manning an Uragan [multiple rocket launcher]… Very few people know about this.’
Dmitry Peskov is not only the dictator’s mouthpiece, but also one of Putin’s top officials who serves as the deputy head of his sprawling government.
It appears that Peskov sent his son off to war after being stung by a prank call on the Popular Politics livestream, a channel linked to the team of imprisoned Putin foe Alexei Navalny.
The caller posed as an army mobilization officer, and Peskov’s son told him, “You must understand that I am Mr. Peskov.
“It’s not quite right that I’m there [at the conscription office].
“To keep it short, I’ll figure this out on another level.”
He told the “mobilization officer” that there were “political nuances” about his call, without explaining that his father was Putin’s trusted spin doctor.
But Peskov’s son also told him: “If I have to defend my motherland, don’t worry, I will be with you.”
Now Prigozhin has revealed that Nikolay served at least several months.
Earlier – long before the current war – Nikolay was a conscript in the Russian nuclear missile forces.
Ukrainian soldiers fire targets on the frontline towards the town of Ugledar, Donetsk
He later worked as a sports journalist for the media network RT ‘propaganda’.
On his mother’s side, he is the great-grandson of the infamous Soviet Marshal and Stalin friend Semyon Budyonny.
Former defense minister of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic, Igor “Strelkov” Girkin, said Nikolay was likely 22 kilometers from the front line in a “minimum risk” role.
But he admitted that the Kremlin scion was rarely sent to the front among the descendants of the elite.