Prince Michael of Kent’s private office lobbied a senior Foreign Office official to help obtain a fast-track UK visa for a Russian financier closely linked to a sanctioned oligarch, The Times can reveal.
The equerry of the prince, the late Queen’s cousin, emailed a diplomat in Moscow asking him if he could “expedite” an application by Maxim Viktorov, a 50-year-old businessman. Viktorov was able to get on a flight to London arriving six days later.
At the time of the intervention in 2018, the prince was the global ambassador and part owner of a UK finance firm that was in the process of securing £100,000 of investment from an organisation run by Viktorov.
Viktorov, a former adviser to the Russian Ministry of Defence, was at the time a close adviser to Boris Rotenberg, a Russian oligarch who was sanctioned in the US after Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014, as Rotenberg was deemed to be a close associate of President Putin. Rotenberg has been under UK and EU sanctions since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Last night the government defended the decision to process the visa for Viktorov through its “priority” service, which allows customers to expedite processing in exchange for a fee, and after the intervention from the prince’s office, saying it does so “where there is a clear national interest — such as to support inward investment”.
However, the disclosures raise concerns given that the visa application was made in the months after the 2018 nerve agent poisonings in Salisbury, at a time when Russia was already considered a significant threat to Britain’s security.
They also renew questions about Michael’s financial interests and the potential for members of the extended royal family to risk damaging the monarchy’s reputation through the use of their royal positions.
The prince has previously been filmed by undercover reporters from The Sunday Times at a business meeting where prospective clients were told, after he left the call, that he could be hired for £10,000 a day to make representations to Putin’s regime.
At the meeting, in 2021, a friend and business partner of the prince described him as “Her Majesty’s unofficial ambassador to Russia” and suggested he could gain access to the “Putinistas”, the decision-makers in the Kremlin.
The new findings come from a three-month investigation by The Times, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and the Russian independent news website iStories, alongside other international outlets including Le Monde and Der Spiegel.
The collaboration has obtained tens of thousands of emails and corporate records relating to Viktorov’s business affairs between 2012 and 2019.
Leaked emails show that in late November 2018 Nicholas Chance, Michael’s equerry, contacted John Lindfield, a British diplomat who was then representing the Department for International Trade in Russia, asking if he could speed up the issuing of a UK visa to Viktorov.
Chance, using his royal family office email account, wrote that Viktorov was seeking the visa to attend a board meeting for RemitRadar, which he described as “a fintech company in the insurance sector, which has Prince Michael as its ambassador”.
He wrote that Viktorov had agreed to become a new investor in RemitRadar, through an investment organisation, and that “you have very kindly said you would see what you might be able to do to expedite the visa application”.
Chance added that Viktorov needed to be in London from December 2, which was six days after the email was sent. Lindfield personally chased up the issue, responding within hours to say: “I have been in touch with the visa team and they have no record of this application. When did they apply?”
Emails show that Viktorov was then able to book an Aeroflot flight to London arriving on December 2. Two days later, a Russian organisation, the Investment Programs Foundation, which was controlled by Viktorov, then purchased 7 per cent of shares in RemitRadar for £100,000.
According to a CV for Viktorov included in the leaked documents, he was an adviser to Russia’s Ministry of Defence after serving in the Russian signals intelligence agency, which had previously been part of the KGB.
He was also a member of the board of Moscow Suvorov Military School, and a committee member of the Russian Association for the Promotion of Science alongside Putin’s daughter Maria Vorontsova, an endocrinologist.
The leaked emails show that Viktorov was a key adviser to the Rotenberg family, including discussing with them the restructuring of some of their assets between 2015 and 2019, after Rotenberg was sanctioned in the US.
Rotenberg, who according to Forbes is worth $1.4 billion, co-owned one of Russia’s largest banks, SMP, with his brother Arkady, who is also sanctioned by the UK, EU and US.
Duncan Hames, director of policy at Transparency International UK, said: “With privileged access should come a degree of responsibility, both from members of the royal family and public officials they seek to influence. Understanding exactly who is benefiting from this royal access is important to ensure these relationships are not abused and good governance is upheld.”
The prince declined to comment. In a previous response to the 2021 Sunday Times undercover investigation, a statement was issued on his behalf saying he did not have a “special relationship” with Putin and had not been in contact with Putin or his office for almost 18 years. It added the business associate speaking during the meeting “made suggestions that Prince Michael would not have wanted, or been able, to fulfil”.
Viktorov and Lindfield were approached for comment. Rotenberg and Chance did not respond to requests for comment.
The government said: “Where there is a clear national interest — such as to support inward investment — requests for visas can be expedited. Visas will only ever be granted in accordance with the immigration rules. The applicant applied using our priority visa service, and his application was processed in the usual time frame of five working days.”
The most ridiculous part of this story is having a “Prince” in the 21st century.
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Prince Michael of Kent’s private office lobbied a senior Foreign Office official to help obtain a fast-track UK visa for a Russian financier closely linked to a sanctioned oligarch, The Times can reveal.
The equerry of the prince, the late Queen’s cousin, emailed a diplomat in Moscow asking him if he could “expedite” an application by Maxim Viktorov, a 50-year-old businessman. Viktorov was able to get on a flight to London arriving six days later.
At the time of the intervention in 2018, the prince was the global ambassador and part owner of a UK finance firm that was in the process of securing £100,000 of investment from an organisation run by Viktorov.
Viktorov, a former adviser to the Russian Ministry of Defence, was at the time a close adviser to Boris Rotenberg, a Russian oligarch who was sanctioned in the US after Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014, as Rotenberg was deemed to be a close associate of President Putin. Rotenberg has been under UK and EU sanctions since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Last night the government defended the decision to process the visa for Viktorov through its “priority” service, which allows customers to expedite processing in exchange for a fee, and after the intervention from the prince’s office, saying it does so “where there is a clear national interest — such as to support inward investment”.
However, the disclosures raise concerns given that the visa application was made in the months after the 2018 nerve agent poisonings in Salisbury, at a time when Russia was already considered a significant threat to Britain’s security.
They also renew questions about Michael’s financial interests and the potential for members of the extended royal family to risk damaging the monarchy’s reputation through the use of their royal positions.
The prince has previously been filmed by undercover reporters from The Sunday Times at a business meeting where prospective clients were told, after he left the call, that he could be hired for £10,000 a day to make representations to Putin’s regime.
At the meeting, in 2021, a friend and business partner of the prince described him as “Her Majesty’s unofficial ambassador to Russia” and suggested he could gain access to the “Putinistas”, the decision-makers in the Kremlin.
The new findings come from a three-month investigation by The Times, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and the Russian independent news website iStories, alongside other international outlets including Le Monde and Der Spiegel.
The collaboration has obtained tens of thousands of emails and corporate records relating to Viktorov’s business affairs between 2012 and 2019.
Leaked emails show that in late November 2018 Nicholas Chance, Michael’s equerry, contacted John Lindfield, a British diplomat who was then representing the Department for International Trade in Russia, asking if he could speed up the issuing of a UK visa to Viktorov.
Chance, using his royal family office email account, wrote that Viktorov was seeking the visa to attend a board meeting for RemitRadar, which he described as “a fintech company in the insurance sector, which has Prince Michael as its ambassador”.
He wrote that Viktorov had agreed to become a new investor in RemitRadar, through an investment organisation, and that “you have very kindly said you would see what you might be able to do to expedite the visa application”.
Chance added that Viktorov needed to be in London from December 2, which was six days after the email was sent. Lindfield personally chased up the issue, responding within hours to say: “I have been in touch with the visa team and they have no record of this application. When did they apply?”
Emails show that Viktorov was then able to book an Aeroflot flight to London arriving on December 2. Two days later, a Russian organisation, the Investment Programs Foundation, which was controlled by Viktorov, then purchased 7 per cent of shares in RemitRadar for £100,000.
According to a CV for Viktorov included in the leaked documents, he was an adviser to Russia’s Ministry of Defence after serving in the Russian signals intelligence agency, which had previously been part of the KGB.
He was also a member of the board of Moscow Suvorov Military School, and a committee member of the Russian Association for the Promotion of Science alongside Putin’s daughter Maria Vorontsova, an endocrinologist.
The leaked emails show that Viktorov was a key adviser to the Rotenberg family, including discussing with them the restructuring of some of their assets between 2015 and 2019, after Rotenberg was sanctioned in the US.
Rotenberg, who according to Forbes is worth $1.4 billion, co-owned one of Russia’s largest banks, SMP, with his brother Arkady, who is also sanctioned by the UK, EU and US.
Duncan Hames, director of policy at Transparency International UK, said: “With privileged access should come a degree of responsibility, both from members of the royal family and public officials they seek to influence. Understanding exactly who is benefiting from this royal access is important to ensure these relationships are not abused and good governance is upheld.”
The prince declined to comment. In a previous response to the 2021 Sunday Times undercover investigation, a statement was issued on his behalf saying he did not have a “special relationship” with Putin and had not been in contact with Putin or his office for almost 18 years. It added the business associate speaking during the meeting “made suggestions that Prince Michael would not have wanted, or been able, to fulfil”.
Viktorov and Lindfield were approached for comment. Rotenberg and Chance did not respond to requests for comment.
The government said: “Where there is a clear national interest — such as to support inward investment — requests for visas can be expedited. Visas will only ever be granted in accordance with the immigration rules. The applicant applied using our priority visa service, and his application was processed in the usual time frame of five working days.”
The most ridiculous part of this story is having a “Prince” in the 21st century.