Alexey Navalny's team released an investigation about the luxury life of a war criminal’s offspring.

A conscription-age son of Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu lives a life in abundance and is building a singer career in a NATO country while his father sends his peers to die in Ukraine.

Danila Shebunov, 22, is one of Shoygu’s three children outside the formal wedlock and earns up to one million rubles (almost 11,000 euros) a month from the rent of two office buildings in the Moscow downtown.

Navalny's journalist investigators have learned that Danila Shebunov left Russia several days prior to President Vladimir Putin’s order for “partial mobilization” on 21 September 2022. Shebunov settled in Turkey, a member of NATO which his father claims to be fighting in Ukraine, and there he pursues a showbiz career.

His father, who never served in the armed forces but yet holds the top military job in Russia, is one of the few who decide who and when goes to the frontline in Ukraine. As of early May, an estimated 100,000 Russian soldiers and mercenaries lost their lives in the neighboring country, more than half being from Danila’s age generation.

Like his father, Danila Shebunov has not served in the military but has avoided mobilization by fleeing Russia.

As a singer, Danila uses the alias Sheba to record songs in English and produce videos.

With just around 700 subscribers to his YouTube channel, the young man boasts with more than 250,000 views for his clips.

Danila is allegedly the son of Sergey Shoygu and Elena Shebunova, a former flight attendant employed with the Ministry of Emergency Situations (MES). In 2019, The Insider published an investigation claiming that Shebunova had earned billions of rubles from contracts with her employer and the Defense Ministry, thanks to her lucrative connection with the then minister of emergency situations – Sergey Shoygu.

Shoygu and Shebunova have three children. All of them attended the elite President School in Rublyovka, which costs around two million rubles a year, the Navalny investigation says.

Neither the Russian authorities nor Sergey Shoygu himself have commented on the allegations about his children outside his formal wedlock. Shoygu is officially married to Irina Shoygu, and the couple has two daughters. Yulia is the director of the Emergency Psychological Aid Center at the MES and Ksenia manages the Russian Triathlon Federation.

Minister Shoygu's secret children Danila, Darya, and Stepan live with their mother Elena Shebunova. Danila's existence came due to numerous violations of traffic rules; in 2020 alone the police booked him more than 100 times. 

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A few years ago, Elena Shebunova married a Lithuanian citizen named Adolfas Kaminskas and changed her family name. In 2022, the Lithuanian authorities revoked her residence permit on the ground that her presence in the country "could pose a threat to national security."

Sergey Shoygu has been slapped with US and EU sanctions for his role in the war, being wanted as a war criminal for the bombing of civilians in Ukraine.

The full investigation is here.