Evgeny Lebedev, Baron of Hampton and Siberia, the first Russian citizen to enter the House of Lords by ‘courtesy’ of Boris Johnson, is coming back to the fore these days, and not precisely because of his parliamentary work (barely two written questions in two years ). The son of former KGB spy Alexander Lebedev, the same one who lavished on vodka and caviar parties before the pandemic, has virtually disappeared from public light since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, although he continues to pull the strings of his media empire in London as editor of the Evening Standard.
A documentary on Channel 4 -Boris, the Lord and the Russian spy- has, however, brought him back to the forefront before the incredulous eyes of the British, who continue to wonder at this point how far the “strange connection” of the former prime minister goes minister and notorious heir to Alexander Lebedev (sanctioned by Ukraine and Canada for alleged links to Vladimir Putin, yet able to elude “punishment” in the UK).
Two new revelations seriously question Johnson’s role in the Lebedev “imbroglio.” Well, now it turns out that the Italian intelligence services kept the Palazzo Terranova in the Umbrian hills under surveillance, where Johnson went in April 2018 (when he was head of the Foreign Office) to meet his Russian friends.
Johnson traveled directly to the Italian village after attending a NATO summit in Brussels. He arrived alone, without helpers or escorts. And he left in the same way, as he could see in the photo taken of him at the San Francisco de Asís airport, with the appearance of “having slept with his clothes on.”
It is now known that the Italian intelligence services tracked his visit to the palazzo and submitted a report to then Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. The same report stressed that “it cannot be ruled out that Alexander Lebedev still works in the KGB or that he participates in its activities.” And that it could not be excluded that the former spy still enjoys “Vladimir Putin’s favor”, and that therefore one had to be especially “careful” when establishing a relationship with him.
Only a month after the Novichok poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury, at the same NATO summit it was determined that “it was very probable that Russia was behind the attack” and the highest representative of British diplomacy nevertheless went out to the meeting of the Lebedevs without witnesses and as if nothing had happened.
A year and a half later, Johnson himself was once again toasting with vodka at the Lebedev mansion in Regents Park, after sweeping the 2019 elections and reaffirming himself as prime minister. After all, the then Conservative leader was tremendously grateful for all the media support received from the Evening Standard since his campaigns as mayor of London in 2008 and 2012, where they sealed an unwritten pact of mutual convenience. .
Long gone were the parliamentary obstacles that Alexander Lebedev faced in his day to gain control of the Evening Standard, and later The Independent, despite his status as a former KGB spy and the questions about how he had achieved in so little time to be number 39 on the list of the richest in Russia. The “impossible mission” was now to ensure that his son Evgeny, to whom he gave the staff of his British empire, achieved the feat of entering the House of Lords despite having been born in Moscow and having just turned forty (the average age in the old camera it is 71 years old).
But there was Boris Johnson, willing to stretch the thread of the law to the maximum to achieve his goals. Several former members of the MI6 intelligence services acknowledge before Channel 4 cameras how the former prime minister was actively and passively warned of the risks to national security that Eugeny Lebedev’s appointment as Lord could entail.
For the first time, it has been revealed how several members of the Government even contacted Buckingham Palace to ask the Queen to block his appointment, given concerns about his father’s ties to Putin. Faithful to her principle of “non-interference” in political affairs, Elizabeth II did not ultimately veto the “ascent” as Baron of Hampton and Siberia of Evgeny Lebedev, photographed on numerous occasions with the then Prince Charles and William.
Faced with the Channel 4 revelations, a spokesman for Evgeny Lebedev said bluntly that “any suggestion that he may have carried out some kind of espionage, connected to Russia or elsewhere, is false.” A Johnson spokesman recalled meanwhile that “Lord Lebedev is a British citizen, has invested in the British media and has extensively criticized the Putin regime.” The same spokesman assured that someone cannot be judged by his place of origin or by his last name, and that the accusations against Lebedev are due to “a xenophobic campaign.”
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
