A St. Petersburg clinic run and partly owned by people having close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin has provided medical cure to Russian mercenaries who were injured abroad - according to three people with knowledge of military contractors being treated, a clinic employee, a reporter’s witness account and company records.

The previously unreported medical treatment for private military contractors injured in combat abroad [Libya and Syria including], proves that fact that fighters have been indirectly supported by the country’s elite.

Russian legislation stipulates it is illegal for Russian citizens to participate in armed conflict as mercenaries and all medical organizations must obligatory report combat injuries to the police for investigation.

It worth mentioning that the said clinic is owned by an insurance company AO Sogaz whose senior officials and some owners are Putin’s relatives – according to the SPARK database, containing data from business registries. Even the clinic’s general director, Vladislav Baranov, has a business relationship with Putin’s elder daughter, Maria.

When Reuters journalists reached him by phone, he advised: “Forget about our clinics, that’s my advice for you”, and his answer to written questions was simple: “I don’t want to communicate with you.” Meanwhile Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated about absence of information on this matter.

For quite some time there was much information on clandestine participation of Russian private military contractors in support of Russian forces in different corners of world – Syria, Ukraine and so on. It’s a well known fact that they are recruited by an equally well known private military group Wagner Group.

The Russian state denies use of mercenaries, stating they are fighting in Ukraine and Syria as volunteers and those present in Syria provided security services, have no ties with Russian state or its army and have the right to work in any country as long as they don’t violate Russian law by taking part in combat.

A story of one wounded soldier

One of such contractors, Alexander Kuznetsov, staying in a clinic, said he had been to Libya. According to him, Russians there were “fighting international terrorism to protect Moscow’s interests.” He sported bandages and attached to his arm was a metal device that is an external metal fixation device of the type used to treat complex bone injuries. He declined to discuss his injuries.

Later this one was recognised by a former Wagner fighter who was treated at the clinic and another private military contractor as the commander of a Wagner Group assault unit who had been injured while fighting in Libya. Kuznetsov confirmed he was a private military commander, but didn’t specify for which group.

A history of clinic

The clinic, which opened in 2010, is one of a private medical facilities Sogaz, opened across Russia, if you visit the company’s website. It has proposed its services to Wagner fighters since at least 2016 [according to the former Wagner fighter who was treated at this clinic]. He said he had been treated for an injury in recent years in the same clinic along with five or six other wounded mercenaries. He had sustained the injury in Syria. In all cases, medical services were free of charge for the fighters [ according to contractors and their relatives].

Sogaz provides Russian army personnel and members of Russia’s National Guard with life and health insurance, according to an official government database of state contracts.

Facts of Putin’s involvement

Putin’s elder daughter is co-founder and a board member of another business that the clinic’s general director Baranov is also general director of, a medical company called AO Nomeko, according to data contained in the SPARK database and the company’s website. Nomeko specifies the Sogaz unit that runs the clinic treating mercenaries as one of its “partners” on its website, without any details.

Maria has not publicly confirmed being Putin’s daughter and the Russian president says little about his family life.

Meanwhile a police department in charge of St. Petersburg did not respond to a request for comment about whether the clinic had reported treatment of fighters injured overseas.

Sogaz’s deputy chief executive is Mikhail Putin, who according to local media is a son of one of Putin’s cousins. The Kremlin has confirmed he is a distant relative of the president.

A son of another Putin cousin, Mikhail Shelomov, owns a 12.5% stake in Sogaz through a company called Accept, according to official company records.

Yuri Kovalchuk, whom Putin has publicly referred to as a friend, and his wife hold a stake in the same Sogaz indirectly, according to company records. The couple own nearly half of a company that controls 32.3% of Sogaz through another firm called OOO Akvila.

Gazprom chief executive Alexei Miller, who worked at the St. Petersburg central’s office in the 1990s with Putin before he became president, chairs Sogaz’s board of directors, according to the company’s website and company records.

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