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Major Donor to Nigel Farage’s Reform Party Owns Russian Assets

We thank Councillor John Lyons (Dublin City, Artane-Whitehall) [Independent Left] for this story.

https://x.com/CllrJohnLyons

Major Donor to Nigel Farage’s Reform Party Owns Russian Assets

Reform’s leader has been criticised in recent days for claiming the west provoked Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

By Adam Barnett and Sam Bright

Jun 26, 2024

One of the biggest donors to Nigel Farage’s anti-net zero Reform UK during the general election campaign has significant Russian business interests, DeSmog can report. 

Natural resources investor David Lilley donated £100,000 to Reform on 10 June – a week after Farage announced that he was returning as the party’s leader. Lilley’s donation was the third largest to Reform during the campaign so far. 

As revealed by The Mirror and Good Law Project in the former’s print edition, Lilley controls a series of companies that own 12,000 hectares of farmland in the Stavropol region of Russia, in the south west of the country, used to produce cereals and oilseeds. 

Lilley confirmed to DeSmog that he still owns this land, saying that “I have never made a secret of my assets in Russia.” He said that he had made no profit on these assets since February 2022 and that he had been prevented from selling them by the Russian state. 

Farage has come under fire in recent days for suggesting that Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine was provoked by the west, and for calling on Ukraine to enter peace talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Good Law Project executive director Jolyon Maugham told DeSmog that Reform is “starting to feel a bit like Russia’s unofficial British Embassy.”