The leadership in exile of the Fund against Corruption (FBK for its acronym in Russian), the NGO founded in 2011 by Alekséi Navalni, the main opposition leader in Russia – who is currently serving a sentence of more than a decade in prison in his native country – plans to write a letter to the Spanish Government demanding the annulment of the residence permit of Yelena Isinbayeva, the Russian athlete who holds the pole vault world record, ardent supporter of President Vladimir Putin and arrival in Tenerife at the end of May with the aim of settling permanently on the Canary Island. So Georgui Alburov has confirmed this to El Periódico, from the same editorial group as EL DÍA.author of an investigation on the athlete and activist of FBK, whose organization rcategorically rejects the recent allegations of the athlete herself disseminated on her Instagram account, assuring that she was a person “of peace”, that she did not hold any position in the Army and that she was far from politics.
«Anyone who follows politics in Russia knows the important role that Isinbáyeva has played in supporting Putin; she on several occasions was his confidante in the elections; she was part of the working group (formed by important personalities from the world of culture, entertainment and sports, such as the former cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, NDR) to amend the Russian Constitution, which allowed Putin to rule the country for life, “denounces Alburov in an email sent to this newspaper. The blogger and journalist describes Isinbáyeva’s denial of her military status as “absurd”: “She holds the rank of major, has a military uniform, the fund she founded has been dedicated to raising money for the cathedral built by the Ministry of Defense and is currently collecting funds to help Russian soldiers in the war,” reveals the FBK researcher.
Without wanting to go into the origin of the fortune accumulated during her sports career, which has allowed her to acquire luxury properties in an exclusive urbanization of Arona, a municipality in the south of Tenerife, Alburov considers her public displays of support for the Putin regime sufficient to be included in the list of sanctioned Russian personalities. “We are finishing the preparation of the legal documents and we are going to send the Spanish authorities all the information we have; Of course we are going to demand the immediate withdrawal of the documents (Isinbáyeva’s residence) and her inclusion on the sanctioned list, “concludes the activist.
The same analysis of the athlete is carried out by the Association of Free Russians, which brings together citizens Russians residing abroad who are opposed to the Vladimir Putin regime. “In 2016, she became a member of Yunarmiya”, which, in the opinion of Alekséi Nesterenko, president of the opposition association, has a role in Russia “similar to the Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend in German), since they educate children from childhood on militarism and the handling of weapons.” The participation of Isibayeva, along with other prominent Russian personalities in the elaboration of the constitutional amendments that were approved in a controversial referendum, held in 2020 amid insistent allegations of electoral fraud, especially outrages the activist. «There is a video in which even Isinbáyeva admits that she had not even read the Magna Carta before joining the working group for its reform; apart from her lack of competence, it shows that she, along with the others, were simply there just to sign what the Kremlin was asking for,” Nesterenko explains.
“System Opportunist”
The Russian athlete born in Volgograd in 1982 has accumulated a considerable fortune, which has allowed her to acquire properties in Tenerife whose value currently amounts to around three million euros, Nesterenko calculates, something difficult to imagine for an athlete of her discipline in the West. «All athletes affiliated with the State earn money from the State and receive its benefits; the payments are legal, it is done officially, even though it is de facto a bribe”, criticizes the activist. «She is the typical opportunist of the Putin system; they are people who, while everything is fine, take advantage of him; when things go wrong, they discreetly take their money and go to another country to live, to wait for what happens; if there is a change, they can return to Russia again », he sums up. Isinbáyeva, after all, what she does not want is “to live in a closed country,” concludes Nesterenko.
Despite the flight to Spain and the rain of criticism she is receiving from official organizations and the government press in Russia, Isinbáyeva continues to be highly appreciated by the leader of the Kremlin. In the last few hours, the presidential spokesman Dmitri Peskov himself has publicly asked what he called a “patriotic society” to refrain from condemning the athlete for settling in Arona. «She has not said anything, she has not criticized anything (in reference to the war) she simply fulfills her function (as a member of the International Olympic Committee); After all, where she lives is not important at all, “said the person in charge, quoted by the TASS agency.
Support for state homophobia in Russia and condemnation of doping sanctions against the Russian Olympic team are also part of Isinbáyeva’s curriculum. In 2013, during the World Athletics Championships in Moscow, she declared: «We Russians consider ourselves normal, standard people, we just live as boys with girls and girls with boys; It comes from our history.”
