The Anti-Corruption Foundation has released a new investigation into Leonid Gornin, Russia’s First Deputy Minister of Defense, who oversees the financial support of the Russian Armed Forces.

Before Gornin, this area was managed by Ruslan Tsalikov, a longtime associate of Sergei Shoigu. Tsalikov is now under house arrest: he is accused of taking bribes and organizing a criminal community. The ACF had previously exposed his corrupt assets, and the court later seized exactly the property our investigators had found.

Now Tsalikov’s place has been taken by Leonid Gornin. He has spent his entire career in government service: he started in the accounting department of the Novosibirsk branch of the Finance Ministry, later became deputy finance minister under Anton Siluanov, and two years ago was appointed First Deputy Minister of Defense.

The ACF has found assets worth around half a billion rubles linked to Gornin’s family.

Among them are a land plot in a new cottage village near Zvenigorod, worth about 38 million rubles; a 176-square-meter apartment in central Moscow’s Bolshoy Tishinsky Lane, worth around 133 million rubles; and two more apartments in the Presnya district, registered to Gornin’s sons.

One of these apartments is located in the premium residential complex Dom na Tishinke. It was registered to Gornin’s sons in 2022, after the start of the full-scale war. The apartment is worth around 150 million rubles. Another large apartment, more than 140 square meters, is located near the Moscow Zoo and Patriarch’s Ponds and is estimated at about 87 million rubles.

Gornin’s elder son, Eduard, works as an auditor at Norilsk Nickel, owned by Vladimir Potanin. His salary is high by Russian standards, but it still does not explain the family’s lifestyle. In 2024, Eduard bought a Porsche Cayenne worth several years of his official salary.

The ACF also found that Gornin’s relatives regularly travel abroad. Eduard Gornin’s wife, Daria Mordovicheva, posted photos from France, and according to leaked border service data, her husband accompanied her on that trip. In January 2023, the couple traveled to the United Kingdom. Eduard Gornin has long-standing ties to London: he studied at the University of Westminster and owned a UK company, LONDON CONSULT, which he later transferred to a former classmate.

The investigation also found that in 2023 Daria Mordovicheva obtained Turkish citizenship. Under Turkish law, citizenship can be granted in exchange for real estate investments of at least $400,000.

While Russian officials demand that ordinary citizens sacrifice their lives, freedom, and future for the war, the families of those running the Defense Ministry buy elite real estate, travel across Europe, and secure backup passports from NATO countries.

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