A new Anti-Corruption Foundation investigation shows how a senior Russian official used his position to bankroll a luxury lifestyle — impossible to explain with any legal income.

ACF has released a new investigation into Irek Faizullin, Russia’s Minister of Construction and Housing & Utilities — a job that should be about keeping homes livable and basic infrastructure working. Instead, our findings point to a familiar pattern in Putin’s system: private luxury funded by public money.

We documented:

• Eight luxury trips to the Maldives (around $90,000 in spending).
• $200,000 spent at TSUM (a top Moscow luxury department store) in just two years.
• Two households — Faizullin’s official family and his mistress’s — controlling property worth about $24 million.

Investigations like this show the core logic of the regime: protecting the ruling class’s right to steal — and building everything else (propaganda, censorship, repression) to defend that privilege.