**”You do have to ask yourself what the motivation is for these donations,” Britain’s former attorney general said.**
LONDON — It was a strongly worded warning from British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to Russian President Vladimir Putin: Invade Ukraine and there will be “significant consequences.”
Three days after that phone call last Dec. 13, Johnson’s Conservative Party received a donation of 66,500 pounds (nearly $88,000) from Lubov Chernukhin, the wife of one of Putin’s former deputy ministers.
In all, Chernukhin has donated more than 2 million pounds to the Conservative Party since 2012, making her one of the largest female donors in British political history, public records from the British Electoral Commission show.
Chernukhin says that she is a vehement critic of Putin and his war, and that none of her donations have been funded by corruption or improper means. Neither she nor her husband are among those who have been sanctioned by the the British government or others, and there is no suggestion either are guilty of any wrongdoing.
Her lawyers said in an email to NBC News that she disputed having historical links to the Kremlin because her husband, Vladimir, fled Russia in 2004 after being fired by the government and suffering harassment. (Vladimir Chernukhin used to chair Russia’s state development bank VEB, whose assets Britain froze after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.)
But she is far from alone. Lubov Chernukhin is just one of several Russia-linked millionaires and billionaires to donate large sums to the ruling Conservative Party.
For some experts and critics, this type of bankrolling exposes a contradiction at the heart of Britain’s response to the invasion: How can Johnson’s government claim to be one of Putin’s strongest opponents, when London — and the ruling party itself — is awash with Russian cash?
Got a mate who knows a bit about this through work and his takeaway was that many Russians who oppose the state of things there are happy to donate to a fairly anti-Kremlin governing party. Obviously there’s an ethical issue in that many of these Russians got very rich in the 90s and were happy to support the regime when it suited them, but it’s an interesting slant.
> Chernukhin says that she is a vehement critic of Putin and his war, and that none of her donations have been funded by corruption or improper means. Neither she nor her husband are among those who have been sanctioned by the the British government or others, and there is no suggestion either are guilty of any wrongdoing.
A LIKELY STORY! These dastardly johnny foreigners may be “innocent of any wrongdoing”, but they can’t hide forever! Their funny names alone are proof of guilt!
It is not hard to understand really. Putin is the biggest critic of the west, yet money is siphoned away from Russia to western corrupt politicians. Yet the Russian people can’t see it and all their problems are the west’s fault. The same forces that control Russian Media and governments are the same as in the USA and Europe. The Kremlin knows how to control public opinion in Russia. In order to do the same in the West it first needs tocontrol politicians, media . Even Londongrad could not have supported the invasion. The conservatives will still keep their money, the taxpayers will pay for the Arms.
The intention might have been to buy influence over U.K. foreign policy, if indeed it was coordinated with the Putin regime, but it’s hard to see what exactly they’ve gotten for their money.
5 comments
1
**”You do have to ask yourself what the motivation is for these donations,” Britain’s former attorney general said.**
LONDON — It was a strongly worded warning from British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to Russian President Vladimir Putin: Invade Ukraine and there will be “significant consequences.”
Three days after that phone call last Dec. 13, Johnson’s Conservative Party received a donation of 66,500 pounds (nearly $88,000) from Lubov Chernukhin, the wife of one of Putin’s former deputy ministers.
In all, Chernukhin has donated more than 2 million pounds to the Conservative Party since 2012, making her one of the largest female donors in British political history, public records from the British Electoral Commission show.
Chernukhin says that she is a vehement critic of Putin and his war, and that none of her donations have been funded by corruption or improper means. Neither she nor her husband are among those who have been sanctioned by the the British government or others, and there is no suggestion either are guilty of any wrongdoing.
Her lawyers said in an email to NBC News that she disputed having historical links to the Kremlin because her husband, Vladimir, fled Russia in 2004 after being fired by the government and suffering harassment. (Vladimir Chernukhin used to chair Russia’s state development bank VEB, whose assets Britain froze after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.)
But she is far from alone. Lubov Chernukhin is just one of several Russia-linked millionaires and billionaires to donate large sums to the ruling Conservative Party.
For some experts and critics, this type of bankrolling exposes a contradiction at the heart of Britain’s response to the invasion: How can Johnson’s government claim to be one of Putin’s strongest opponents, when London — and the ruling party itself — is awash with Russian cash?
Got a mate who knows a bit about this through work and his takeaway was that many Russians who oppose the state of things there are happy to donate to a fairly anti-Kremlin governing party. Obviously there’s an ethical issue in that many of these Russians got very rich in the 90s and were happy to support the regime when it suited them, but it’s an interesting slant.
> Chernukhin says that she is a vehement critic of Putin and his war, and that none of her donations have been funded by corruption or improper means. Neither she nor her husband are among those who have been sanctioned by the the British government or others, and there is no suggestion either are guilty of any wrongdoing.
A LIKELY STORY! These dastardly johnny foreigners may be “innocent of any wrongdoing”, but they can’t hide forever! Their funny names alone are proof of guilt!
It is not hard to understand really. Putin is the biggest critic of the west, yet money is siphoned away from Russia to western corrupt politicians. Yet the Russian people can’t see it and all their problems are the west’s fault. The same forces that control Russian Media and governments are the same as in the USA and Europe. The Kremlin knows how to control public opinion in Russia. In order to do the same in the West it first needs tocontrol politicians, media . Even Londongrad could not have supported the invasion. The conservatives will still keep their money, the taxpayers will pay for the Arms.
The intention might have been to buy influence over U.K. foreign policy, if indeed it was coordinated with the Putin regime, but it’s hard to see what exactly they’ve gotten for their money.
Seems they were shortchanged tbh