Kremlin-funded film director and propagandist Nikita Mikhalkov revealed as owner of luxury property in Spain

The team of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has published an investigation alleging that filmmaker Nikita Mikhalkov’s television program Besogon (lit. “Exorcist” or “The one who drives out demons”). receives substantial funding from state institutions and from state-controlled oil major Rosneft, despite Mikhalkov’s repeated public claims that the project is noncommercial and financed “out of his own pocket.”

According to the investigators, Rosneft has been transferring 5 million rubles ($65,500) for each episode since early 2024, labeling the payments as fees for “placing advertising and informational materials.” Navalny’s team said no such Rosneft advertising appears in the broadcasts.

Additional payments, the report says, come from Russia’s Ministry of Education. Citing Besogon’s financial documents, the investigation claims that Mikhalkov’s entities receive 350,000 rubles ($4,500) for every short excerpt of the program that is included in instructional materials for school lessons titled “Conversations About Important Things.” Over the course of two months in 2024, those payments reportedly totaled 1.4 million rubles ($18,300). Another 560,000 rubles ($7,300) went to Mikhalkov’s company from entities linked to the Defense Ministry, where Besogon episodes are shown to servicemembers during training sessions.

According to the Navalny team’s calculations, Besogon LLC earned a net profit of 46.5 million rubles ($609,000) in 2024. That contradicts Mikhalkov’s statements that he “does not receive a single kopek” from the state and that his program does not generate revenue.

The investigators noted that these sums are modest compared with Mikhalkov’s personal resources. Data for 2024 show that Mikhalkov’s accounts at Promsvyazbank alone held approximately 1.7 billion rubles ($22.3 million).

The second part of the investigation concerns the Mikhalkov family’s foreign assets. Navalny’s team says the director’s daughter, Anna, owns three apartments on Spain’s Mediterranean coast that previously appeared in Mikhalkov’s own asset declarations as Russian property. The director himself owns an apartment in an elite clinic near the Mediterranean resort town of Benidorm. The property was purchased in 2018 and seized in 2023 under European sanctions.

The investigators also say the family owns a villa in Sotogrande valued at around €5 million. The nearly 1,000-square-meter property is registered to Mikhalkov’s wife, Tatyana, and their children, which kept it from being frozen under European sanctions. The report adds that Mikhalkov’s relatives actively use both the villa and the Spanish apartments.

Navalny’s team further alleges that Mikhalkov maintains a second family in Spain. The investigation claims that former Perviy Kanal (lit. “Channel One”) host Maria Lemesheva — described as the mother of the director’s alleged daughter — owns two apartments near the properties of Mikhalkov’s official relatives. Footage published by the foundation purportedly shows Mikhalkov and his younger daughter traveling to Spain for vacations.