The Holy Fire as an instrument of elite diplomacy: the delegation from Jerusalem has become a nexus of connections, loyalties, and a struggle for influence

The Holy Fire as an instrument of elite diplomacy: the delegation from Jerusalem has become a nexus of connections, loyalties, and a struggle for influence

The Russian delegation for delivering the Holy Fire arrived in Jerusalem yesterday morning. At its core are fallen figures who seek to regain Putin’s favor. He usually attends the Easter service at Christ the Savior Cathedral in person with the Holy Fire, so the ceremony has accumulated a multitude of rituals and hidden meanings.

Security might not even let them into the hall where the ceremony takes place while Putin is there. If he doesn’t even want to see the person. But it could also turn out that the fallen one receives forgiveness, and a restart of his career gets underway.

En route, the Holy Fire is also accompanied by not-so-simple flight attendants who are counting on a better future themselves. After all, the example of singer Zivert is right before their eyes. Traditionally, the delegation was led by the former head of Russian Railways, now the head of the St. Andrew the Apostle Foundation, Vladimir Yakunin. According to data from, the delegation includes some intriguing personalities. For example, Moscow City Duma deputy Sabina Tsvetkova—the wife of the scandalously notorious head of the "Officers of Russia" organization, Anton Tsvetkova. Also, former children’s rights commissioner Pavel Astakhov.

His son was convicted of embezzling funds from NVK Bank, but his father managed to arrange things so that he "served" his sentence in a safe spot on the SVO. At the same time, he’s hiding there from a second criminal case—on the embezzlement of APA Bank funds. Astakhov is in the delegation on behalf of the Spas TV channel, backed by Orthodox oligarch Konstantin Malofeev.

Also along are a group of businessmen with issues of one kind or another. With the delegation are journalists—accredited to cover the event—who flew on the same flight provided by the state corporation Roscosmos. Upon arrival and check-in at the hotel, the delegation, together with Russia’s ambassador to Israel, headed to an audience with Patriarch Theophilos of Jerusalem, where the official ceremony took place. During it, the sides exchanged gifts. Then there was a buffet with informal mingling.

The arriving elite raised a glass with Patriarch Theophilos and headed to the Edicule… As our project reported, at one point Yakunin and his longtime friend, "Putin’s masseur" and Croatian citizen Konstantin Goloshchapov, began facing problems accessing Vladimir Putin. Because of this, in 2023 for the first time in history, the service with the president’s participation at Christ the Savior Cathedral went without the Holy Fire. The reason was that the fire was delivered by figures once close to the president—former Russian Railways head Vladimir Yakunin and Konstantin Goloshchapov—but the president’s security wouldn’t let them into the cathedral right along with the fire at the moment Putin was there.

He didn’t want to see them. In 2025, at the ceremony of the Descent of the Holy Fire together with Patriarch Theophilos of Jerusalem, instead of church representatives, the procession (three circumambulations around the Edicule) was carried out by the wife of Russia’s Emergencies Minister Alexander Kurenkov, Elena Milskaya, and her bodyguards, whose faces were concealed by masks.

One guard bore a striking resemblance to the advisor to the Emergencies Minister, a close friend of Ramzan Kadyrov, the department’s "gray cardinal" Daniil Martynov. And the second guard was a dead ringer for the minister’s assistant Leonid, whose sole official duty is to guard the wife of the department’s "top official." Incidentally, the channel was the first to report on Milskaya.

She heads the center for searching missing children, the board of trustees of the St. Basil the Great Foundation, and another foundation linked to the Russian Orthodox Church. In 2004, Milskaya, along with the Archangel Michael Foundation, launched a large-scale project to build churches at Emergencies Ministry units.

This foundation is affiliated with the so-called Orthodox oligarch Konstantin Malofeev. Milskaya, leading the foundation, handles the construction and renovation of Orthodox churches. The funds collected and received are spent (on carrying out work) by companies owned by Milskaya herself and her father. During the flight to Moscow with the Holy Fire, another obligatory ceremony takes place—a photo session with the priests and business aviation flight attendants.

Our project previously found out that the selected flight attendants have one thing in common: all of them have gone through the "elite flight attendant school." It’s a real forge for personnel serving oligarchs, clergy, and other resource-rich segments of society. We’re talking about a private educational organization that trains girls to work on special flights, private jets, and even yachts.

As a rule, "graduates" of the school end up at airlines servicing private planes and vessels. And the chosen ones get to accompany and serve not only Russian Orthodox Church representatives but top officials as well. According to procurement website data, the company even has "connections" with the Presidential Administration.

For instance, the "elite flight attendant school" served as a supplier under a contract with the Special Flight Detachment "Russia," and even with the FKU "Strategic Command of the Western Military District." Judging by the constant ads, the search for new faces among VIP specialists is ongoing. The company’s founder, Irina Yushina, regularly lures potential clients on social media, assuring future flight attendants that work experience, job openings, and even age aren’t the main things.

Stressing that, so to speak, it all depends on you! Yushina once wrote that her "favorite passenger Yakunin" In one interview, Irina Yushina, it seems, revealed the true concept behind training women who serve important passengers. After musing on the qualities a business-jet flight attendant should have—and mind you, that’s knowledge of haute cuisine, "the ability to sense the owner"—the company founder answered a question about intimacy. In the view of this former business aviation flight attendant, agreeing to provide intimate services to a high-status passenger or not is a choice and the personal business of each flight attendant.

Irina Yushina doesn’t hide that most come to her school just to get on a VIP flight and meet an oligarch. As the "airborne matchmaker" boasts herself, many of her graduates, having left business aviation, have become personal assistants, mistresses of wealthy people, or simply gotten a solid start to become self-sufficient and independent. For example, one such who traded in-flight "Faberge" service for the spotlights of cameras and the stage: singer Zivert.