As Nathan Gill’s sentencing date approaches for bribery by Russian agents when serving as an elected MEP, it’s worth noting that he wasn’t the then BREXIT party’s only link to Russia. So, the question is how much further did it go? 🧵1/17 
2/ Gill has admitted 8 counts of bribery between 6/12/18 and 18/07/19. He was handled by Oleg Voloshyn, although his wife Nadia Sass (aka Borodi) was never far away. They both worked on behalf of Ukrainian pro-Russian politician Viktor Medvedchuk, a personal friend of Putin.
3/ There have been photographs and other links between these two characters and other members of the Brexit Party at the time, but only Gill has been formally charged with any crime.
4/ It would be easy to dismiss this episode to be just about Ukraine, although taking a pro Russian position on that for money is bad enough. But the truth is that the Russian links go far deeper and beyond just these characters.
5/ First a quick reminder. Nigel Farage became an MEP in Jun 1999. In 2004 he became the president of Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD) and was elected as UKIP’s leader in 2006.
6/ In 2014 UKIP won the most seats in the European Parliament election which pressured David Cameron to call the 2106 EU Referendum. After which, Farage resigned as UKIP's leader and co-founded the Brexit Party in 2018 (renamed Reform in 2021). He remained an MEP until Jan 2020.
7/ The aforementioned bribes started just after the Brexit party was formed (6/12/18) until 18/7/19. but let’s go back to Nigel Farage’s time as President of the EFDD (04-19) - a right wing euro- sceptic group of which 24 of its 47 MEPs were from UKIP. euronews.com/my-europe/2019…
8/ A senior member of the EFDD staff until at least 2015, was a Maltese man named Kevin Ellul Bonici, who was known to have a close relationship with the Russian embassy in Brussels. and was known to distribute Russian propaganda material collected there. theguardian.com/politics/2017/…
9/ Bonici was educated in Russia and wrote in an essay about his fondness for the Soviet Union , and his belief that the EU was a doomed project. He spent many of his following years seeking to bring that about, as well as pushing Russian propaganda.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/6…
10/ It’s worth noting here that during his period as President of the EFDD, Farage appeared on Russia Today at least 17 times. It’s perhaps inconceivable that this and Bonici’s ties to the Russian Embassy in Brussels is a coincidence.theguardian.com/politics/2014/…
11/ But let’s talk about Yelizaveta Peskova and Aymeric Chauprade. Chauprade was a French MEP who supported Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. He even travelled to Crimea to "monitor" the discredited Crimean status Referendum and commented on the events live on Russia Today.
12/ He was a member of both the European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee and the subcommittee on security and defense, and was part of the delegation of the EU-Russia parliamentary committee.
13/ Up until late 2015, Chauprade was a member of Marine Le Pen’s National Front, but quit the party to become an independent MEP, before becoming the vice-Chair of (yes you guessed it) the EFDD, of which Farage was still the President.
14/ But who was Yelizaveta Peskova you ask? Well, between Nov 2018 and April 2019 she was an intern for Chauprade. Not unusual for a young graduate to cut their teeth in the political cauldron of the European Parliament you say.
15/ But she is the daughter of Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s Press Secretary since 2012. Now, these links could be entirely coincidental, or merely symptomatic of Russian attempts to infiltrate and influence political leaders that further their own aims. bbc.co.uk/news/world-eur…
16/ But, Nathan Gill’s case has given us the first proof of collusion between a UK MEP and RussiA. What this🧵shows is that there is plenty of circumstantial evidence to suggest our elected politicians were far more exposed to potential Russian influence over a far longer period.
17/ We are currently witnessing a media and political frenzy over the legal application of the definition of spying with respect to a minor staff appointment to a serving MP. If only we had had the same level of scrutiny a few years back…
POST NOTE: I’m not trying to score a political point, I would call out any suspected collusion with a hostile Nation. But, had I, or anyone else who served, had an ounce of this level of connection with Russia, we would never have received a security clearance...
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