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There’s been a fair bit of coverage on the £200k donation to the Tories given by Lubov Chernukhin, the wife of Russian oligarch and former Russian finance minister, but little in the way of detail/context (
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2. Lubov Chernukhin is listed at CH as being the director of Capital Construction and Development Limited, “a property advisory company” incorporated in September 2005. As a ‘person with significant control’ she will have a minimum 25% or more of the shares/voting rights.
3. It’s hard to find evidence of Capital Construction’s operations or info on employees, yet for some reason it has as an A-rating/full sponsor licence from the Home Office’s ‘Register of Sponsors Licensed Under the Points-based System.’
4. The application was submitted between May 2012 to April 2013. Why did Theresa May approve this during her time as home secretary? They're certainy friendly these days...
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/251179/Q4_Q5.pdf
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/251179/Q4_Q5.pdf
5. Is Lubov Chernukhin the director or the owner? According to CH, the company is 100% owned by ‘Excellton’ - a BVI company, meaning that Chernukhin is also connected to Excellton. There is zero mention of this company on the internet.
6. Going back into older Companies House reports and we can see that prior to 2008, the company was owned from Cyprus, this time through R R E Holdings Limited.
https://opencorporates.com/companies/cy/HE166513
https://opencorporates.com/companies/cy/HE166513
7. A quick search for the Cyprus company reveals that it was a part of a High Court of Justice dispute between Mr Chernukhin and Oleg Deripaska, a Cypriot-Russian oligarch and of the Russia’s richest men. How is this connected to Mrs Chernukhin? https://www.serlecourt.co.uk/images/uploads/news-and-events/Danilina_v_Chernukhin_approved.pdf
8. As the court case reveals, Mrs Chernukhin was given shares in RRE Holdings Limited and “50% of Navio Holdings - another Cyrpus listed company set up to “buy real estate in Russia.”
9. Navio held shares in ‘TGM’ a textile company located on prime Moscow real estate at the centre of the dispute between Chernukhin and Deripaska. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/02/07/putin-ally-loses-high-stakes-legal-battle-moscow-factory/
10. This information suggests that Mr & Mrs Chernukhin’s wealth, in part, at one point came from ownership of ‘TGM’ - that is until Mr Chernukhin lost control when he lost the High Court Case against Deripaska.
11. Bringing Deripaska into the thread highlights more close ties with the Tories and Russian oligarchs. In Feb, Mr Deripaska appointed Conservative Peer Lord Barker of Battle to run his energy company En+ in early 2019....
12. ...after Barker successfully lobbied Trump to lift sanctions. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-28/how-a-british-lord-helped-push-trump-to-lift-rusal-sanctions
13. Looking through these connections it’s easy to see why the Tories are trying to bury the report into Russian meddling in UK affairs until after the election. Even a cursory look into some of these companies reveals new links worthy of investigation.
