However, Sunak’s government has so far stopped short of proposing the seizure of tens of billions of pounds’ worth of Russian assets currently frozen in UK financial institutions.
It should be not be overlooked that the governing Conservative Party has something of a tradition of accepting significant donations from wealthy Russians. According to the UK-based Good Law Project, Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine has not persuaded the party to break the tradition.
One donor, Lubov Chernukhin is the largest female political donor in British history having donated over £2 million to the Conservative Party.
Lubov Chernukhin
Chernukhin, the wife of Vladimir Chernukhin, a former deputy finance minister under Vladimir Putin and former chairman of Russian state corporation VEB.RF, which is currently sanctioned by the UK Government, is a member of the Conservative Party’s Advisory Board for significant donors.
Documents in the Pandora Papers leak of internal files and correspondence from offshore financial firms show the couple are linked to a network of 32 companies, three trusts and more than £100m in assets.
Viktor Fedotov
VIKTOR FEDITOV.
Boris Johnson & Evgeny Lebedev.
Lord Evgeny Lebedev, who has dual Russian and British nationality, is the son of a former KGB spy, Colonel Alexander Lebedev, a former officer in the First Chief Directorate (Foreign Intelligence) of the Soviet Union’s KGB and, later,
He moved to the UK as a child and owns the The Independent and London Evening Standard newspapers.
Boris Johnson & Evgeny Lebedev.
He became a non-party, cross-bench peer in July 2020, after being nominated by Boris Johnson for philanthropy and services to the media. Johnson’s name was again associated with Lebedev when Italy’s secret intelligence service was monitoring the luxury Umbrian villa owned by the Lebedev family when Boris Johnson visited in April 2018 during the time was he was foreign secretary, the Guardian reported at the time.
MPs voted in March of last year to force the publication of secret documents, amid claims the security services had raised concerns about the Russian-born mogul. However, the Cabinet Office has released only limited information to comply with the demand.
Neither of the Lebedev’s is recorded to have financially contributed to the Conservative Party, but the relationships with Boris Johnson were raised by the House of Commons’ Intelligence and Security Committee in 2019.
Subsequently, Johnson blocked a report by the Committee naming Russian donors.
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