Russian film director Nikita Mikhalkov revealed to have signed property in Spain over to family to avoid sanctions

Alexey Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) revealed on Wednesday that Oscar-winning Russian film director and vocal Putin supporter Nikita Mikhalkov has a secret second family, as well as a large property portfolio in Spain that he has put in the name of his relatives to avoid sanctions.

Mikhalkov, who won an Oscar for his epic historical drama Burnt by the Sun in 1995, is one of Putin’s most ardent supporters and has redoubled his vocal support for the regime since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which he has subsequently described as being “sent to us by God so that we would finally wake up”.

Though Mikhalkov declared his ownership of three apartments in the Spanish city of Torrevieja in 2017, he signed them all over to his daughter, Anna, in 2019, according to the FBK. In 2018, Mikhalkov also bought a 250-square-metre, two-storey apartment at a spa near the resort town of Benidorm, though that was confiscated in January 2023 after Mikhalkov was sanctioned by the EU.

Another large villa in the city of Sotogrande has been registered to Mikhalkov’s wife and their three children as a way of avoiding its confiscation, the FBK added. 

The FBK also revealed that Mikhalov has a secret second family with Russian journalist Maria Lemesheva, who gave birth to his daughter in 2011. An outspoken advocate for “traditional values”, Mikhalkov had been married to his wife Tatyana for 38 years when his daughter Marfa was born.

The following year, Mikhalkov bought Lemesheva a 115-square-metre apartment in Torrevieja, 20 minutes from other property owned by the official Mikhalkov family, while Lemesheva bought herself a second, 87-square-metre apartment in 2018, the FBK uncovered.

For the past 15 years, Mikhalkov has presented the TV programme Besogon in which he lauds traditional values and praises Vladimir Putin and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. While according to Mikhalkov the programme is a non-profit project that receives no state funding, the FBK revealed that Russian state energy giant Rosneft had transferred over  €55,000 per episode for “advertising”, even though Rosneft does not advertise with the show.