Alexander Lebedev met senior Russian government official weeks before invasion of Ukraine
Vyacheslav Dukhin
- Alexander Lebedev met with a senior Russian official in early February, weeks before Ukraine was invaded.
- Vyacheslav Dukhin posted photos on his Instagram showing Lebedev and him touring a factory that produces parts for Russia's nuclear energy industry.
- It comes amid questions about his son's peerage, and both men's relationship with Boris Johnson.
Alexander Lebedev met with a senior Russian government official in early February, weeks before the invasion of Ukraine, to tour a complex that produces parts for Russia's nuclear energy industry.
Photographs posted on Instagram by Vyacheslav Dukhin, a former journalist who has since July 2020 been deputy prime minister of the Moscow region, show the two men touring the Energomash ChZEM complex in Chekhov, near Moscow.
At the time, Russian forces were built up on the Ukrainian borders, with NATO forces on standby. After the invasion of Ukraine began, Dukhin shared pro-war content on his Instagram.
The photographs show the pair looking at components produced by Energomash, visiting a cultural complex set up at a renovated factory on the site, and at a sports center on the site.
Energomash is the only manufacturer of a type of valve for Rosatom, the state-owned Russian nuclear energy organisation, Dukhin wrote.
Lebedev, whose links to the firm date back to 2015, is a former KGB agent and the father of newspaper proprietor Evgeny Lebedev, whose peerage has come under increased scrutiny in recent weeks.
Boris Johnson pushed forward with the honour for his friend despite the British security services recommending against it, according to the Sunday Times.
Lord Bew, chair of the Lords' appointments vetting watchdog Holac, recently told MPs it was a "case of particular complexity with many wrinkles that are so obvious to everybody: how much is somebody responsible for their father".
Lebedev junior is the majority owner of the Evening Standard and the Independent, which were first purchased for £1 each by his father.
Questions also surround a reported meeting between Johnson, then foreign secretary, and Lebedev senior during an April 2018 trip to a villa owned by the Lebedevs in Italy.
Johnson travelled without his security detail and no minutes were made of their meeting, which came a month after the Salisbury chemical poisonings of former Russian agent Sergei Skripal.
Johnson is yet to respond to a Parliamentary question on the meeting.
Alexander Lebedev's posts at Energomash and claims of a hacked website
A spokesman for Lebedev said he had never met Dukhin before the tour at Energomash, and that he does not own Energomash.
"The factory in question doesn't belong to Alexander," he told Insider. "It is not in his ownership. I've had that confirmed. Alexander doesn't own it. He doesn't have a part in the ownership."
He rents premises at the factory, where he intended to launch a school, and was viewing it for his four children, he added.
"It was purely a personal interest that was coming as a parent," the spokesman said. He did not explain why Dukhin was there.
But in a 2016 interview with a Russian energy trade magazine, Armtorg, a plant director said the factory is part of the National Reserve Corporation, owned by Lebedev.
Energomash features on Alexander Lebedev's Russian-language website, although not on his English-language website.
Alexander Lebedev
One page on Lebedev's website cites a December 2021 Instagram post, naming Lebedev as the owner of the plant.
However this was dismissed by the spokesman, who told Insider: "The website is no longer in Alexander's control. It is now in the control of a former, disgruntled employee."
He declined to say for how long the website had been out of control.
In 2015 and 2016, Lebedev shared a number of photographs of him at the site, posing with valves. In another post, Lebedev says the factory will produce "high pressure valves for atomic and thermal stations".
—Alexander Lebedev (@lebedevalex) June 11, 2015
In a February 17 meeting with the Moscow regional government and sanctioned energy firm Gazprom, Energomash discussed "import substitution and technological development", the firm's notes of the meeting say.
The spokesman restated their denial that Alexander owned the factory after Insider approached him for clarification.
But an April 2022 presentation by the National Reserve Corporation, featuring a large photograph of Alexander Lebedev, cites the redevelopment of the plant in Chekhov as an example of its work in cultural heritage done through public-private partnerships.
Dukhin's office was contacted for comment.
Contributer : Business Insider https://ift.tt/65hCRBa
Reviewed by mimisabreena
on
Friday, April 29, 2022
Rating:
No comments:
Post a Comment