BORIS Johnson's Tories took another £80,000 in donations from the wife of a former Putin minister in the months running up to the Ukraine invasion, it has emerged.
In the latest register released by the Electoral Commission, covering the last quarter of 2021, two donations from Lubov Chernukhin are detailed – with one worth £66,500.00 on December 20 and another totalling £13,750.00 on October 22.
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Chernukhin, who is married to the former oligarch Vladimir Chernukhin, Putin’s one-timedeputy finance minister, recently made headlines after BBC Breakfast showed a photograph of her with Foreign Secretary Liz Truss.
Chernukhin is one of the biggest female donors in recent British political history, giving the Conservatives £2.1 million since 2012.
She also paid £20,000 for a dinner with former Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson in 2018. The party says the dinner has never happened, there are no plans for it and the baroness has, “to the best of her knowledge”, not met the individual.
There is renewed scrutiny on the Conservatives’ donations from Russian-linked figures due to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Truss was recently asked if cash linked to Russia would be handed back in the wake of Putin’s brutal behaviour, but she told Sky News: "All donations to the Conservative Party are from people on the electoral register in Britain, those donations are properly declared."
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Back in 2019, the Tories faced criticism for taking £50,000 from Chernukhin on the same day that Theresa May said it was “highly likely” that Russia was responsible for the Salisbury Novichock poisonings.
Prior to that, Chernukhin handed over £160,000 at auction for a chance to play tennis with Boris Johnson and David Cameron.
The Labour Party have attacked the Conservatives for continuing to accept the money from the donor.
Angela Rayner, the party’s deputy leader, said: "This government's dangerous links to Putin's cronies must be rooted out.
"If this government is serious about taking the toughest measures to eradicate Putin's influence in Britain, they must first get their own house in order."
And at Prime Minister’s Questions on the same day, Labour MP Bill Esterson asked the Prime Minister if he would instruct the Conservative Party to hand the money to Ukrainian humanitarian causes.
Esterson said: “I know he doesn’t want to tar everyone with Russian links with the same brush and neither do I, but leaked documents… show that Vladimir Chernukhin received eight million US dollars from a Russian member of parliament, an ally of Putin who was later sanctioned by the United States.
“This is an opportunity for the Conservative Party and for the Prime Minister to end the suspicion of conflict of interests with Putin whilst showing solidarity with the Ukrainian people.”
Johnson replied: “It is absolutely vital that if we are to have a successful outcome in what we are trying to do collectively, united with Ukraine, that we demonstrate that this is not about the Russian people, it is about the Putin regime.”
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