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Re: BORIS, THE LORD, The Russian SPY & Partygate
BORIS, THE LORD & The Russian SPY
Italy Was Monitoring Lebedev Villa at Time of Boris Johnson
---Intelligence service believed property was being used for espionage purposes, documentary claims
Eight Boris Johnson Allies Named and Shamed For Intimidating Partygate Committee
---Jacob Rees-Mogg, Nadine Dorries and Priti Patel are among the Tory MPs and peers who attempted to "undermine" the committee investigating the disgraced former PM's Partygate lies
BBC NEWS 1 JULY 2023
For a moment, I thought that Dispatches: Boris, the Lord and the Russian Spy (Channel 4) was about Boris Johnson and God and a Russian spy — which would have been interesting.
A fiver says that Boris would have emerged triumphant. And that God would have ended up angry and confused and ready to launch a parliamentary inquiry. But we live in ungodly times.
These days it is a relief to look at other people’s scandals. Things at RTÉ have become so gothic that watching even the weather forecast has become like visiting the bedside of a dying relative. So it was nice to curl up with Boris, the Lord and the Russian Spy. Because, whatever the problem there was, at least it wasn’t being paid for with your money.
Boris was one of the many influential British people drawn into the circle of the extraordinarily rich Lebedev family. Alexander Lebedev is a Russian oligarch, a billionaire many times over.
Like many Russian oligarchs, he is an Anglophile, and had his son Evgeny educated in the UK. Unlike many oligarchs, Alexander Lebedev had been a senior officer in the KGB. He said that he had retired but the British security services were pretty sure that he attended the annual KGB conference every year.
Evgeny, rail-thin, permanently tanned and with black hair and a black beard that make him look like a Russian Rylan Clark, stayed in the UK (and also two villas in Italy) throwing parties. Which everyone who was anyone attended: one party was at Althorp, the ancestral home of Lady Diana; although she was at this point unfortunately deceased. But Boris was very much alive.
Italy’s secret intelligence service was monitoring the luxury Umbrian villa owned by the Lebedev family when Boris Johnson visited in April 2018 while he was foreign secretary, a documentary has claimed.
The agency believed the property, Palazzo Terranova, and a second villa nearby owned by the family were being used for espionage purposes, according to the Channel 4 documentary Boris, the Lord and the Russian Spy.
Italian security concluded in a secret document that Alexander Lebedev, a former Russian spy who became a wealthy businessman, had continued to enjoy the “favour and friendship” of Vladimir Putin and queried whether he had genuinely severed ties with Russian intelligence after leaving the KGB decades earlier.
It stated that Lebedev’s resignation from the Russian spy agency, for which he served in London between 1988 and 1992, was “considered by many to be unclear”.
Johnson attended a Nato summit in Brussels in April 2018 where leaders agreed it was “highly likely” that Russia was behind the Salisbury nerve agent attack the month before.
Hours later, he flew to Italy where he attended a party hosted by Lebedev’s media magnate son, Evgeny, in Palazzo Terranova. Johnson had been a frequent visitor, attending social gatherings on at least half a dozen occasions dating back to his time as London mayor.
Johnson admitted for the first time last July, during a session with the Commons liaison committee, that he met the former KGB agent at his Italian palazzo without officials present during his visit. He told MPs: “As far as I am aware, no government business was discussed.”
The report by Italy’s foreign intelligence agency, written for the former prime minister Giuseppe Conte and seen by the film-makers, was part of a wider security service investigation that was shown to members of the Italian parliament’s intelligence oversight committee in 2021.
The documentary reports that, unknown to Johnson, Italy’s secret intelligence service had been monitoring the Lebedevs’ two Umbrian properties for several years, suspecting they were being used for spying.
Lia Quartapelle, an MP who sits on the Italian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, told the film-makers: “The conclusion of the report is that it cannot be ruled out that he [Alexander Lebedev] still works for the KGB or he still is involved in KGB activities.
“The report says that it cannot be excluded that Lebedev today, up to date, enjoys the favour of Vladimir Putin. You should really be careful on what kind of relationship you keep with such a person.”
She added: “Clearly from the report, it stands out that the properties were part and tool of a network of relationships. They were part and tool of a strategy of influence. And so it was noticed who was there, how many times people went there and so on.”
A spokesperson for Johnson said: “As this programme makes clear, there were no concerns about Lord Lebedev … Lord Lebedev is a British citizen. He has invested in British journalism and has extensively criticised the Russian regime.
Italy Was Monitoring Lebedev Villa
The full story of Boris Johnson's friendship with press baron Evgeny Lebedev and his dad Alexander, an ex-KGB spy, revealing the secret fears of security services
Partygate
Partygate Video Revealed as Tories Drink, Dance and Laugh at Covid Rules
Exclusive footage obtained by the Sunday Mirror shows Tory staff dancing and laughing about ‘bending the rules’ during a Partygate gathering in 2020.
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