Kremlin critics demonstrated in Paris in front of the suspected home of the wife of Russia’s deputy defense minister demanding sanctions against the politician’s wife.
Several dozen demonstrators gathered on Sunday in front of the house in the seventh arrondissement, one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the French capital. The protest was organized by supporters of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, who is in prison in Russia.
The demonstrators, facing the deputy minister, held placards with inscriptions such as “Rob in Russia. Kill in Ukraine. Has a wife in France”. The activists criticize that Svetlana Manjowitsch, the wife of Russian Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov, allows her husband to circumvent EU sanctions. She must therefore be forbidden to live in the EU. Their assets in Europe would have to be frozen.
“These are the relatives of a war criminal,” Maria Pewschich, a close associate of Navalny, told the AFP news agency at the protest rally in Paris. “They should experience some kind of punishment and justice for what they do.”
Navalny’s team published an investigation in December that showed that Ivanov’s family had lived a life of luxury in Europe for years, with vacations in the French seaside resort of Saint-Tropez, Rolls-Royce bodies and expensive jewelry. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ivanov took over and profited from overseeing construction projects in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol. Ivanov’s wife, on the other hand, moved to France after the war began in order to continue to lead a life of luxury.
According to the Navalny team, Manjovich and Ivanov divorced in June 2022 to avoid Western sanctions. However, Ivanov’s donations are still Manjowitsch’s only source of income.
According to their own statements, Navalny’s supporters have been mobilizing for weeks to persuade the French authorities to act. So far, however, they have not responded. “It’s not the time to ignore that,” criticized Pewschich. “We are in the middle of a war.” (AFP)
