Russian cash poses questions
SO why was the publication of the Commons Intelligence and Security Committee Russia Report delayed and a heavily redacted version only released months after the 2019 election?
In relation to the 2016 referendum, the report stated: “The UK Government has actively avoided looking for evidence that Russia interfered.”
It stated that Russian influence in the UK was “the new normal” with Britain “welcoming oligarchs with open arms” and that London had become the “laundromat” for illicit finance.
So, why did Boris Johnson push ahead with the nomination of Evgeny Lebedev for a peerage despite MI5 and MI6 considering that there could be a threat to national security?
Lebedev, who owns the Evening Standard and Independent newspapers, derives his wealth from his father, a billionaire oligarch and EX-KBG agent who is thought to retain close ties to the Kremlin.
Boris Johnson has visited Lebedev’s castle in Italy at least six times, sometimes in Lebedev’s private jet, making one secret trip even after he had become Foreign Secretary in 2016.
So, why has the UK Government only so far sanctioned two Russian billionaire allies of Putin when that supposedly over-bureaucratic organisation, the EU, has managed to sanction 25 oligarchs? The
White House has sanctioned eight, with visa bans on a further
19. The Government’s emergency legislation has been criticised even by Tory backbenchers who fear that delays will allow oligarchs to sell their assets and move their money off-shore.
Surely, it couldn’t be that the
£1.93 million of Russian money given to the Tory party since Boris Johnson has been Prime Minister has had anything to do with this?
The biggest single donor is Lubov Chernukhin, the ex-wife of Vladimir Chernukhin, a former deputy finance minister under Putin, who was allowed to leave Russia in 2004 with assets of around £366 million. She has personally donated around £2 million to the Tory party since 2012.
Surely, nice clean Russian money couldn’t buy influence like this... could it?
Mike Baldwin, by email