Relatives of the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Ground Forces, General Oleg Salyukov, make money by organizing patriotic and military holidays commissioned by the Ministry of Defense, according to a BBC investigation. As it turned out, the daughter-in-law of the commander-in-chief, Dina Salyukova, owns the HQ Agency event agency, which regularly receives orders from the Ministry of Defense, as well as from the Moscow City Hall, the Highways State Budgetary Institution, MGIMO and the administration of the Tula region.
In particular, this agency has been organizing the celebration of the Day of the Ground Forces in the Patriot park near Moscow for four years in a row. HQ Agency has existed since 2016, however, in the public domain on the public procurement portal, journalists were able to find only one government contract won by the agency at an auction – for organizing the participation of the Moscow City Hall in international exhibitions.
A BBC correspondent, under the guise of an official who wants to organize a patriotic holiday, contacted Salyukova. In a conversation, the woman said that her company is “very close” to the Ministry of Defense, and also explained why HQ Agency does not advertise the fact that it arranges military holidays. According to Salyukova, "they don't always want to show a patriot."
As the BBC found out, even before the founding of her own agency, Dina Salyukova worked in Patriot Park, like her husband, the son of the commander-in-chief Dmitry Salyukov. Ground Forces Day has been celebrated in this place since 2015.
Oleg Salyukov headed the Ground Forces in 2014. Prior to that, since 2010, he served as Deputy Chief of the General Staff. The Insider found out that the general received from the state an apartment in the Moscow residential complex "Smolenskaya Zastava" worth 70 million rubles.