“I always fly to Europe on free weekends”: Russian propaganda talk show producer avoids sanctions while buying property in Moscow and the EU

RU

Margarita Zhitnitskaya (working under the pseudonym “Margo Krzhizhevskaya”) does not give interviews and does not appear on screen, yet she is undeniably one of the key figures in Russian propaganda. Many political talk shows broadcast on Russian state-run channels are not produced by the channels themselves but by independent companies — an area where Zhitnitskaya’s M-Production has thrived.

Zhitnitskaya is behind the production of programs such as “Evening with Vladimir Solovyov,” “The Right to Know!,” “Moscow. Kremlin. Putin,” “Solovyov Live,” “Full Contact,” “Ours with Boris Yakemenko,” “Evening Z,” and even the infamous Belarusian hate-filled political show Azarenok. Directly. M-Production was also entrusted with organizing pre-election debates, including during Russia’s 2024 elections. The information presented in Zhitnitskaya’s productions has been repeatedly debunked in The Insider’s Antifake section.

In her youth, Zhitnitskaya was a figure skater specializing in ice dancing. She even graduated from a university focused on the development of young athletes.Her television career began as a producer on a project led by Vladislav Listyev, a progressive television journalist who was assassinated in 1995. In 1992, Zhitnitskaya founded her own production company, MB Group, which produced entertainment programs for Russia’s major TV channels. As she mentioned in one of her rare public appearances, she also made “films for oligarchs” — meaning she commissioned videos for birthdays and corporate anniversaries.

Zhitnitskaya’s media empire operates through three legal entities: M-Production LLC (ООО «М-продакшн»), M-Production Media LLC (ООО «М-Продакшн Медиа»), and M-Production Group («М-Продакшн Групп»), all of which she fully owns. The combined revenue of these companies exceeded 4.5 billion rubles ($46.5 million) in 2023, roughly double that of 2021 — the year before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Most of this income comes from the Rossiya-1 television channel, including payments for producing Evening with Vladimir Solovyov.

Beyond Solovyov himself, M-Production has also been paying notable regulars of political talk shows in recent yearsю These include “American” political analyst Nikolai Zlobin, self-styled “doctor” Alexander Myasnikov, and propagandistic “political analyst” Sergey Mikheev.

Two Porsches — used by Zhitnitskaya herself — are registered as owned by M-Production LLC and M-Production Media LLC. Personally, she owns a Mercedes-Benz GLS, BMW 420D, Porsche Cayenne, and Land Rover Discovery Sport.

Alongside her impressive collection of luxury SUVs, Zhitnitskaya owns several elite properties. According to data obtained by The Insider, she is the owner of three Moscow apartments (totaling 226 square meters) in a residential building on Rozhdestvensky Boulevard, as well as two apartments (totaling 195 square meters) in the high-end “Heart of the Capital” residential complex.

Notably, three out of these five apartments were purchased in 2022 — after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The total value of Zhitnitskaya’s real estate holdings is estimated at 230 million rubles (just over $2.35 million) — just under what she earned in 2020 alone, when her personal income reportedly reached 246 million rubles, according to a leaked tax database. Meanwhile, the net profit of her companies producing content for state TV totaled 655 million rubles (over $6.7 million) during the period 2021-2023.

“If I have a free weekend, I always fly to Europe,” Zhitnitskaya-Krzhizhevskaya admitted back in 2011 during a master class for students at the Higher School of Television. This is backed by The Insider's data on her border crossings: in the past ten years, she has traveled abroad over 100 times, most frequently visiting Italy, France, Bulgaria, the UK, Turkey, the U.S., the UAE, India, Israel, Spain, Cyprus, and the Maldives.

Zhitnitskaya continues to visit Europe freely today, as the EU has not imposed sanctions on her — and neither has the U.S. She regularly flew to New York at least until 2022, all while her company in Russia was churning out anti-American propaganda.

For example, in September 2021, while she was in New York, her star client Vladimir Solovyov mocked Joe Biden on Russia-1. Similarly, in February of that year, while Zhitnitskaya was vacationing in New York, Solovyov's show featured “experts” railing against the U.S.

“I was interested in Lake Como because so many of my colleagues live there,” Zhitnitskaya once told students at the Higher School of Television. However, unlike Vladimir Solovyov, who lost access to his Italian villa due to sanctions, his boss continues to enjoy Western hospitality — while simultaneously waging an ideological war against the West on Russian television.

The Insider has also uncovered that Zhitnitskaya owns property in Bulgaria, a member of both the EU and NATO.

Until 2022, she owned two Bulgarian companies: “LOTOS DEVELOPMENT” and “M-PRODUCTION.” She later transferred ownership of these businesses to her son, Gleb Piryatinsky, a U.S. citizen whose right to carry an American passport comes from the fact that he came into the world during one of his mother’s many visits to the purportedly hostile West — in this instance, Zhitnitskaya’s destination was Madison, Wisconsin.

In other words, a U.S. citizen is a direct beneficiary of anti-American programs aired on Russian television. Piryatinsky also studied film directing in the UK. Whether Zhitnitskaya plans to involve her son's skills in her propaganda projects remains unknown.