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Putin Spokesman Downplays Daughter’s Internship at EU Parliament

Yelizaveta Peskova / Instagram / stpellegrino

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday said that his daughter interns at the European Parliament as a regular student, after several EU lawmakers expressed security concerns.

Yelizaveta Peskova, 21, is listed as a trainee for French far-right EU parliamentarian Aymeric Chauprade, who had backed Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine. Several of Chauprade’s colleagues have criticized Peskova’s internship as a security breach, the RFE/RL news service reported.

“This is an ordinary student and an ordinary internship we’re talking about,” Peskov told reporters in response to questions about his daughter, according to the state-run TASS news agency.

Chauprade, who told TASS that Peskova is paid the standard intern’s salary of 1,000 euros ($1,135) per month, rejected the criticism as “conspiratorial Russophobia.” Meanwhile, reports say that neither Chauprade nor Peskova have access to confidential documents in the European Parliament.

The children of high-level Russian officials are known to live and study in the West.

Peskova’s past work includes briefly assisting the head of a pro-Kremlin business association in 2017 before quitting and returning to France.

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