At just 15 years old, Maryana Naumova stunned the world of strength sports by lifting 150 kg in the bench press at the 2015 Arnold Classic competition held in Columbus, Ohio. Arnold Schwarzenegger was impressed and embraced the young Russian prodigy, who told the former governor of California that she hopes he will “become the president of the United States and mend relations with Russia,” reports The Times.
Relations with Russia, however, have rarely been worse, just over a decade away. Naumova, 27, has given up powerlifting and is part of President Vladimir Putin’s propaganda group. They seem to be a heterogeneous team, which also includes a former advisor to President Richard Nixon and a retired spy, but, according to a report published by a Russian investigative journalism website, they are getting rich.
After being suspended for doping in 2016, Naumova reinvented herself as a pseudo-war reporter for state media, frequently traveling to the Donbas region of Ukraine to produce reports and praise the “excellent Russian warriors” fighting there. This led to a break with her former hero, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who recorded an appeal to the Russians in 2022, stating that they were being “sacrificed for a senseless war” against Ukraine.
Naumova gave a response, telling the action movie star and politician that Putin’s invasion was a just cause “directed against the neo-Nazi organization Skynet” in Kiev. For her efforts, she earns 8,814,000 rubles a year (76,000 pounds sterling).
In contrast, top television presenters, military bloggers, and pro-Kremlin war correspondents earn up to 800,000 pounds sterling per year, Verstka found after analyzing leaked documents from the Social Fund of Russia, which collects mandatory contributions from taxpayers for pensions and benefits.
One of the highest paid is Dmitri Kiselyov, the host of Vesti Nedeli, a weekly news summary — some would say more of a tirade — broadcast on the Rossiya 1 channel. He has an annual income of 70,580,000 rubles, or 606,000 British pounds. Kiselyov is known for the fact that, in 2014, he posed in front of an image of a mushroom cloud and reminded viewers that “Russia is the only country in the world that has the real ability to turn the USA into radioactive ash.”
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