Putin-linked oligarch ‘funded husband of top Tory donor’
ARUSSIAN oligarch closely linked to president Vladimir Putin secretly funded the husband of one of the Conservative Party’s biggest donors, according to an investigation.
Lubov Chernukhin, a banker who is married to Mr Putin’s former deputy finance minister, has given at least £1.7m to the Conservatives, Electoral Commission records show.
Her donations have won her meetings with Boris Johnson, and his two Conservative predecessors as prime minister, Theresa May and David Cameron.
Leaked files seen by BBC Panorama show her husband, Vladimir Chernukhin, received £6.1m, initially coming from a politician who has been sanctioned in the US over his relationship with the Kremlin.
Mr Chernukhin was sent the money in 2016 from a British Virgin Islands company linked to Suleyman Kerimov, according to a major leak of banks’ “suspicious activity reports” that have been dubbed the “FinCEN Files”.
Mr Kerimov, a gold magnate who sits in the upper house of Russia’s parliament, has been under investigation in France over an alleged tax fraud involving luxury villas on the Riviera.
A Conservative Party spokesperson said: “There are people in this country of Russian origin who are British citizens and have the democratic right to donate to a political party.
“Many have been vocal critics of Putin and it is completely wrong and discriminatory to smear them all with the same brush.”
But Rhondda Labour MP Chris Bryant called for the Conservatives to return Ms Chernukhin’s money.
“Successive Tory prime ministers have been utterly complacent and naive about accepting vast slabs of cash from Russian cronies of Putin,” he said. “The Conservative Party should return every penny it has received from Lubov Chernukhin now.”
It was being made clear that Ms Chernukhin has the right to donate to a political party as a British citizen and suggestions of the couple being allied to Mr Putin were disputed.
They moved to London after Mr Chernukhin apparently fell out with the president after being dismissed from his role in charge of a state-run bank.
Ms Chernukhin began donating to the Conservatives in 2012 and the majority came after the alleged payment linked to Mr Kerimov was reportedly made in April 2016.
Political parties’ acceptance of donations has been coming under heightened scrutiny.
Parliament’s intelligence and security committee has warned that successive governments “welcomed the oligarchs and their money with open arms” and allowed them to forge “connections at the highest levels with access to UK companies and political figures”.