Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov, 58, the official voice of the Russian Ministry of Defense, has concealed for years in his asset and revenue declarations that he owned an apartment in Chisinau, his hometown.

„Under the heading for country location, the country where the property is located must be indicated,” explains the Russian Ministry of Defense on its official page. Although the residence is over a thousand kilometers from Moscow, the Russian army spokesman named Russia as the „country location” instead of Moldova.

Before having the keys to that apartment’s door in Botanica Sector of Chisinau, there lived his mother, originally from the Russian Federation, and his stepfather, a Ukrainian born in a town near Kiev – which was attacked by Russians during the first days of invasion.

Zhytomyr, another Ukrainian city bombed by the Russians, is closely tied to Konashenkov’s past. RISE Moldova discovered a gallery of photographs from the military officer’s parties during a tour of Russia and Ukraine. Accompanied by comrades from both countries, he was captured in a sauna, playing Russian pool, and posing under the Ukrainian flag.

Two years after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Konashenkov recently got slapped with sanctions by Australia, after previously landing on the sanctions lists of the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Switzerland. The reason? „Dissemination of disinformation about Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine.„

THE CHISINAU APARTMENT
Igor Konashenkov is the voice of the Russian army, appointed in 2017 by Vladimir Putin as the head of the information and communications department within the Ministry of Defense.

He was born in Chisinau, the capital of Moldova, 57 years ago.

RISE Moldova learned that Igor Konashenkov became the owner of an apartment in the Moldovan capital city in 2010.

Located in Botanica Sector, the 48-square-meter property in a five-story building has two rooms and a balcony.

The building has been partially insulated, and some balconies are painted yellow, green, and beige.

At the building entrance, we stumbled upon several bags of plaster and construction tools. On the stairs, next to the walls half-painted in green, there are several pots with flowers. We rang and knocked on the door of that apartment, but no one answered. Instead, another door on the same floor opened. A woman from a neighboring apartment asked us who we were looking for. After showing her a photograph and a cadastral document, she frowned and exclaimed:

„He’s Igor from Moscow who shares military information on television. All he spreads are falsehoods. He’s not coming back to Moldova anymore, otherwise we suffocate him.”

Neighbors still remember him as a child. „Igor lived here, with his mother Lidia and Felix [his Ukrainian stepfather]. He sold the apartment. Last time he dropped by was when his mother turned 70, he took her back to Russia.”

Konashenkov sold his Chisinau apartment in 2012, when he was still employed at the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, to a young woman born in Cantemir District of Moldova.

We searched for this property in his asset and revenue declarations filed in Russia during that period.

In 2010, when he became the apartment’s legal owner, Konashenkov listed in his asset and revenue declaration two apartments on his name and two on the name of his wife Natalya Biragova, who works at a hospital of the Russian Ministry of Defense. In the heading „country location of property”, he named Russia for every apartment.

Yet, one of the four properties had a similar area to that of the Chisinau residence. A year later, the Russian army spokesperson published a similar property report, indicating the same location for every apartment – Russia, and none in Moldova.

In 2012, Konashenkov omitted any mention of the 48-square-meter apartment, even though he sold it in the summer of the same year. We also checked the asset and revenue declarations of other military personnel, colleagues of Konashenkov at the Ministry, filed for the same period. Several of them indicated Moldova as the country location for their properties while others declared Central Asia countries in the same heading.

THE MOSCOW APARTMENT
Since 2015, Konashenkov has owned an apartment of nearly 100 square meters in an elite neighborhood in the downtown of Moscow. The property is officially valued at over $700,000, but its market price could exceed one million dollars. The Telegram channel „We Can Explain” published in late 2022 a cadastral record regarding this property, showing that the owners’ names have been classified after the start of the Russian invasion in Ukraine. In the heading about owner, „Russian Federation” appears twice instead of the names of Igor Konashenkov and his daughter Arina – the true owners.

The records obtained by RISE Moldova show that the driver’s license of the Russian army spokesman was registered at the same address as the classified property. And his daughter has used the same location several times for food deliveries.

SANCTIONS FOR DISINFORMATION
The spokesman of the Russian army has been included on the sanctions list in the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, as well as in other countries.

„In his capacity as the chief spokesman of the Russian Ministry of Defense, he is responsible for manipulating information and spreading disinformation about Russia’s military actions in Ukraine. He has promoted a positive attitude towards Russia’s unprovoked military aggression against Ukraine, towards the annexation of Crimea, and towards the actions of separatists in Donbas, presenting the situation in Ukraine in a biased manner and spreading disinformation about Ukrainian and Western activities,” the E.U. sanctions list reads.

We have called Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov several times on his personal phone numbers as well as ministerial landline numbers, but he has not responded. We’ve also sent him questions via email but no response has arrived by the day this story went live.

SAUNA AND RUSSIAN POOL
Konashenkov’s military education and training began in Zhytomyr, a city in northwest Ukraine, 140 kilometers from Kyiv, which was bombed by the Russians during the first weeks of invasion. There, he befriended with both Russian and Ukrainian military cadets. Some of them still live in the war-devastated city today.

In 2005, Konashenkov – already employed at the Ministry of Defense in Russia – paid curtesy visits to the Ukrainian military institution he had graduated from. Then he continued his studies at the Military Academy of Aerospace Defense in the Russian city of Tver in Russia, almost 180 kilometers from Moscow.

Usually, he stood in front of the institutions shoulder to shoulder with his former comrades for photo sessions. Then they would go together to a sauna, where they would play Russian pool, clinking glasses with strong drinks.

We’ve found photographs depicting Konashenkov’s gatherings in a social media album published by one of his family friends, Lieutenant Colonel Konstantin Klepon, 72, a Ukrainian settled in St. Petersburg, the second largest city in the Russian Federation.

In Russia, Klepon worked as the manager of two security firms. One of them is called Katana Northwest and provided security services to a sports club of the Russian army in St. Petersburg.

Lieutenant Colonel Klepon appears in several images wearing T-shirts and hats bearing „Russian army.” He also worked as a lecturer at the Military Academy of Aerospace Defense in Tver, where Konashenkov studied.

We have identified other officers who appear in Klepon’s photo album. RISE Moldova has repeatedly sent him messages and tried to contact him by phone, but he turned down our request for an interview.

Colonel Oleg Artyomov, 54, also works at the Military Academy of Aerospace Defense in Tver, serving as the head of the physical training department, which trains young cadets. In most pictures taken at their parties, Artyomov stands next to Konashenkov and the two pose as good friends.

Another man from those pictures, 71-year-old Colonel Vitaliy Tsybulsky, also appears alongside the Russian army’s spokesman. Tsybulsky used to be a right-hand aide to Anatoliy Hrytsenko, Ukraine’s defense minister between 2005 and 2007. A few years later, Hrytsenko turned politician to lead the Civic Position party, which in 2012 joined the Batkivshchyna bloc of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

Tsybulsky followed Hrytsenko into politics and bid several times for a seat in the Ukrainian parliament on the lists of the Civic Position party, none of the elections being successful for him.

In several pictures posted by Klepon, Colonel Tsybulsky is seen at parties in Zhytomyr wearing a blue hat with the Russian army symbol. Or wearing a red hat with the simple inscription „Russia.”

Now, Tsybulsky runs an ophthalmology clinic, with hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers fighting on the front lines counting as his patients. RISE Moldova has attempted to get in touch with Tsybulsky several times, but he would not pick up the phone or return any messages.

Iurie SANDUTA

Editare: Daniel BOJIN

Fact-checking: RISE Moldova Fact-Checking Department.

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