Russian-linked Kents to retire from Royal family engagements
Queen’s cousin and his wife to step down from public life on Prince’s 80th birthday, it is understood
PRINCE and Princess Michael of Kent are set to retire months after the Prince severed his ties to Russia.
The Queen’s first cousin, a fluent Russian speaker with a lineage to Tsar Nicholas II, had strong business links with the country that came under scrutiny after the invasion of Ukraine.
In March, the 79-year-old – who, along with the Queen, is one of King George V’s nine grandchildren – handed back an Order of Friendship award, one of Russia’s highest honours, and stepped down as patron of the Russo-british Chamber of Commerce. However, he is understood to have remained an ambassador and shareholder of Remitradar, a money-transfer firm led by former KGB officer Sergey Markov.
Now, The Daily Telegraph understands that the Prince and his wife, Marie-christine, 77, are stepping down from public life altogether with an official announcement expected in the coming days.
It is thought the move will coincide with the Prince’s 80th birthday on July 4. A spokesman for the couple refused to comment further.
According to the official Royal family website, the Prince is “involved in around 100 charities and organisations, including being patron for a large number of these”. Although classified as a “non-working” royal, each year he undertakes more than 200 public working engagements for the not-for-profit sector, funded by his own household rather than the taxpayer.
In 1947, as a five-year-old, he was a page boy at the Queen’s wedding to Prince Philip. He is often seen at the monarch’s side at family events, alongside his siblings Princess Alexandra and the Duke of Kent.
The website adds: “The charities vary from reflecting his interest in transport, for example being patron of the Brooklands Museum Trust, to his passion for Russia, including his own charity, the Prince Michael of Kent Foundation, which works to benefit heritage, culture, health and post-graduate business education in Russia.”
Mr Markov was named as the head of the foundation on the charity’s Russian website, which was taken offline after Ukraine was invaded on Feb 24. His Linked In entry suggests he is still “managing director” of the Foundation, having first been appointed in 2005.
The Prince holds an honorary professorship from St Petersburg Mining University, presented in 2017 by billionaire Vladimir Litvinenko, a friend and former campaign manager of Vladimir Putin, the Russian president. He is also a patron of the Moscow Academy of Industry and Finance and has an honorary doctorate and Glory of Russia award from Plekhanov Economics Academy.
It emerged in 2012 that he had received at least £320,000 from exiled oligarch Boris Berezovsky over six years to assist with staff costs. There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing.
The Princess is “actively involved in around 45 different charities and organisations” according to the Royal family website. A divorcee when she married the Prince in Austria in 1978, she and her husband were dubbed the “Rent-aKents” after she once opened a Happy Eater restaurant, joking: “I’d go anywhere for a hot meal.”
The mother of two, born in Sudetenland, now part of the Czech Republic, has courted controversy in the past over allegations of racism and making disparaging comments about fellow members of the Royal family. She once suggested older members of the family were “boring” and said Diana, Princess of Wales was “uneducated” and had found it hard to cope with her royal status having grown up without a mother.
The Princess, whose father was a major in the Nazi SS, was forced to apologise in 2017 after wearing a blackamoor brooch, depicting the bust of a black person with an opulent gold crown, to a Christmas lunch at Buckingham Palace.
The gesture prompted particular controversy as the event was attended by the Duke of Sussex’s then fiancée Meghan Markle, who is bi-racial.
‘The Prince Michael of Kent Foundation works to benefit heritage, culture, health and business education in Russia’