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.