Reform UK urged to root out party links to Russia after bribery case

MEPs to make pro-Russia statements, without their awareness.

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The statements by Gill in the European parliament and on 112 Ukraine, a pro-Russia television channel, were designed to benefit the Kremlin’s narrative on Ukraine in the period before Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour in 2022.

A sentencing note from the Crown Prosecution Service indicated four other MEPs in Ukip with Gill had made interventions, after he was promised bribes from Voloshyn to arrange for them to make statements. They are Steven Woolfe, William Dartmouth, Jonathan Arnott and Jonathan Bullock. A fifth, David Coburn, who had been in Ukip and was the party’s leader in Scotland at one point, was also mentioned in WhatsApp messages between Voloshyn and Gill.

None were found by investigators to have received money themselves.

Voloshyn repeatedly passed on praise for Gill’s work from Viktor Medvedchuk, a loyal ally and friend of Putin for decades linked to 112 Ukraine. At one point, after the appearances of Gill’s fellow Eurosceptic MEPs on the channel, Voloshyn messaged him on WhatsApp to say: “V asked to pass you his gratitude. He literally said it was ‘awesome’. He even boasted with those MEP comments to his friend you know where and that person was impressed.”