Putin ally’s son racked up Tesla fines while “fighting” in Ukraine—Reports

The son of Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, racked up fines on a Tesla car he owned while he was allegedly fighting in Ukraine, according to local media reports.

Several Telegram channels, including Sota and VChK-OGPU, reported that a Tesla Model X owned by Peskov’s 33-year-old son Nikolay Choles until the end of March was fined twice, on July 24 and November 6, 2022, when he was allegedly fighting in Ukraine with the Wagner Group.

Newsweek has been unable to independently verify VChK-OGPU’s claims and has contacted Russia’s foreign ministry by email for comment.

The Wagner Group, a paramilitary outfit founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, has been heavily involved in fighting in Bakhmut, a small industrial city located in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. It has recruited thousands of prisoners throughout Russia to fight in Ukraine.

Prigozhin claimed in an interview on April 21 that a son of Peskov fought in Ukraine. Without specifying names, Prigozhin said the Kremlin spokesman asked him to “take” his son into the Wagner Group as “a simple gunner.” He said, “Few people know about it.”

Kremlin spokesman Peskov confirmed on Monday that his son had participated in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. “He’s reached that decision, he’s an adult,” he told reporters.

Prigozhin said he had admitted Peskov’s son to his group, which provides soldiers for hire, “using forged documents.” According to Prigozhin, he served for “just under half a year.”

The Wagner Group founder said Peskov’s son “lived part of his life in America, in my opinion, if I’m not mistaken, or in England.”

Meduza, a Latvia-based independent news outlet, reported that Prigozhin’s description fits the eldest son of Peskov, Nikolay Choles, who lived in the U.K. for 10 years and returned to Russia in 2011-2012. According to Reuters, Choles lived in the U.K. for a decade in the early 1990s, and in the early 2010s served in Russia’s Strategic Rocket Forces.

Several Telegram channels have expressed doubts that Peskov’s son fought in Ukraine because his Tesla received fines in Moscow when he was allegedly in the neighboring country with the Wagner Group.

“The VChK-OGPU, has collected information that casts doubt on the fact that the son of Putin’s mouthpiece Dmitry Peskov fought as part of the Wagner PMC, and did not make a ‘combat voyage’ for a photo shoot,” the VChK-OGPU Telegram channel said.

It cited an unnamed source as saying that the vehicle “was his favorite car.”

“From the beginning to the end of 2022, the car was actively moving around Moscow, and data on fines was even preserved. So, during the declared period of Nikolai’s ‘service’, the electric car violated the rules on the routes familiar to the owner in July and November 2022. And there is every reason to believe that Nikolai himself was driving,” the Telegram channel said.

Choles told Russian news outlet Komsomolskaya Pravda in an interview published on Saturday that he considered it his “duty” to fight in Ukraine.

“I couldn’t sit on the side and watch how my friends leave [for Ukraine].”

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