The son of Putin’s best friend has been fighting in Ukraine after bragging about dodging calls

The son of one of Putin’s top officials was forced to enlist in the Russian army after previously boasting that his father’s connections would keep him out of Ukraine.

Nikolay Peskov, 32, was caught last year by journalists saying he was pulling strings to avoid conscription.

However, it was later revealed that his father — Putin’s longtime spokesman Dmitry Peskov, 55 — had instead arranged for the British-trained Nikolay to be sent to war and serve as a gunner.

It is a rare example of the son of a senior official fighting in the conflict, even though he does not appear to have been on the front lines, where tens of thousands of “cannon fodder” Russians have died.

“From all my acquaintances [in high circles] only one person [Dmitry] Peskov, who was once known as an outright liberal, asked me about his son who spent part of his life in England,” said Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the infamous Wagner group.

‘[Peskov] came to me and said: “Think of him as a simple artilleryman”

“He served like everyone else, knee-deep in the mud and manned by a uragan [multiple rocket launcher]…

“Few know about it.”

Dmitry Peskov is not only the dictator’s mouthpiece, but also one of Putin’s top officials, serving as the deputy head of his sprawling government.

It appears that Peskov sent his son to war after being stung by a prank on the Popular Politics livestream, a channel linked to the team of imprisoned anti-Putin Alexei Navalny.

The caller identified himself as an Army mobilization officer.

But Peskow’s son said to him, “You must understand that I am Mr. Peskow.

“It’s not quite right that I’m here [at the conscription office].

“Long story short, I’m going to figure this out on another level.”

He told the “mobilization officer” that his call had “political nuances”, without explaining that his father was Putin’s trusted spin doctor.

But Peskov’s son also told him: “If I have to defend my homeland, don’t worry, I will be with you.”

Now Prigozhin has revealed that Nikolay served at least several months.

Before that, long before the current war, Nikolay was a conscript in the Russian nuclear force.

He later worked as a sports journalist at the media network RT “Propaganda”.

On his mother’s side, he is the great-grandson of the infamous Soviet Marshal and Stalin friend Semyon Budyonny.

Former defense minister of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic, Igor “Strelkov” Girkin, said Nikolay was likely 22 kilometers from the front lines in a “minimum risk” role.

But he admitted that among the descendants of the elite, the Kremlin scion was rarely sent to the front.

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