Friday, August 28, 2026
A very Russian conspiracy
In Betrayal: Trump, Putin and The New Age of Conquest, Harding, who has described Putin’s Russia as a “Mafia state”, suggests that Nathan Gill was part of a bigger pro-Russian network than has previously been reported.
The website notes that Gill is serving a 10 and a half year sentence after being paid £40,000 by the pro-Russian Ukrainian diplomat, Oleh Voloshyn to ask questions in the European Parliament favourable to the Russian regime:
Introducing an extract of his new book published in the investigative news website The Nerve, Harding writes: “In 2008, I met the Ukrainian diplomat and journalist who would go on to bribe Gill: Oleh Voloshyn. At the time he was working as press attaché at the Ukrainian embassy in Moscow, where I was based as the bureau chief for the Guardian. Voloshyn made no secret of his pro-Kremlin views. He was clever, chatty and spoke impeccable English. He later went back to Kyiv to work for the Putin-backed administration of Ukraine’s president, Viktor Yanukovych.
“In the years that followed – wittingly or not, paid or not – Farage and his political colleagues repeated Russian government talking points. Famously, Farage has said he admires Putin as an operator; as recently as last week one of his supporters expressed sympathy with Moscow as it continues to pound Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities with drones and ballistic missiles.”
Nation.Cymru reported how a social media account branded as Reform UK Alyn and Deeside and Wrexham advocated defunding Ukraine, a scenario that would inevitably lead to Russia’s victory in the war between the two countries.
Harding writes how Farage has sought to distance himself from Gill: “He has dismissed Gill as a bad apple. And yet it seems certain that more scandal will engulf the Kremlin-friendly right of British politics, whose allegiances remain murky. There are further betrayals to come.”
The article describes speeches by Gill that repeated talking points fed to him by Volshyn. Harding says that “Gill’s intervention made no impression on the Strasbourg chamber. Two of his Ukip MEP colleagues – David Coburn (the leader of Ukip in Scotland) and Jonathan Arnott – followed up with pithy speeches on the same theme, asking if Ukraine was really ready for EU membership. The trio’s contributions were forgettable, but they delighted one person who had travelled from Kyiv to Strasbourg for the occasion: a Ukrainian journalist and one-time diplomat called Oleh Voloshyn."
He continues: “Immediately afterwards, Gill pinged Voloshyn a recording of his speech, as well as Coburn’s, filmed side-on with a camera phone. Voloshyn was thrilled, telling Gill: ‘Impressive … You are the perfect orator.’ Gill messaged back, alluding to a mysterious person, V: ‘V should be pleased with this 3x what he thought.’ Voloshyn agreed. ‘Exactly!!! Thank you so much,’ he wrote.
Harding states: “The exchanges were part of a conspiracy. It involved Kremlin propaganda, Russian operatives and corruptible public servants. There were cash bribes, delivered in white envelopes over dinners in Strasbourg and Brussels. Gill accepted money on at least eight occasions. He was one head in a hydra-like influence network whose scale was unknown. There were connections to party representatives inside multiple EU states, among them Poland, Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, Slovakia and Bulgaria.
“There were numerous players on the Russian side. Volosyhn was, London alleged, an undercover Kremlin asset. He had close ties with Putin’s old spy agency, US officials added, labelling him an FSB ‘pawn’. (Voloshyn denies the allegations.)
“According to Czech intelligence, members of his immediate circle were close to the FSB’s Fifth Directorate, the organisation’s ‘foreign division’, responsible for Ukraine and other former Soviet states.
“Voloshyn’s wife, Nadia Borodi, who went under the pseudonym Sass, was also a TV journalist. Both of them worked at 112 Ukraine and News One, stations that were owned by an associate of Viktor Medvedchuk – the V of Gill’s messages. Medvedchuk was a long-time Kremlin agent and Ukraine’s leading pro-Russian figure; Putin is a friend of his and godfather to Medvedchuk’s younger daughter. In 2014 the Kremlin gifted Medvedchuk a Russian oil refinery, used to fund his media empire inside Ukraine.
Harding goes on to explain how Russia’s modern spy agencies still used leftwing actors, but under Putin the main vector of political influence shifted to the populist, anti-EU and anti-migrant far right:
He states: “Many of its supporters in Europe expressed sympathy towards Moscow and disliked Kyiv. As with Maga in the US, there was an ideological overlap between British Eurosceptics and the Russian government. Both wanted to undermine the EU, its institutions and its leadership. The Kremlin supported Brexit, seeing it as an instrument that would weaken Europe and divide British society.
“Wittingly or not, paid or unpaid, Ukip appeared happy to do Moscow’s bidding. Between 2010 and 2014 Farage appeared at least 17 times on RT. He made no criticism of Russian authoritarianism and claimed Europe was governed not by elected democracies, but ‘by the worst people we have seen in Europe since 1945’. Farage said he admired Putin, ‘not as a human being but an operator’, and repeated the claim that Nato’s ‘ever eastward expansion’ had provoked Putin’s war. He qualified this by adding: ‘Of course it’s his fault.’ Gill was another RT guest.
“It was in this context that eight British MEPs appeared on 112, spouting Voloshyn’s talking points. They were elected members of Ukip and its successor, the Brexit party. Among them were Coburn, Arnott and William Dartmouth, a British life peer and MEP for South West England. They were joined by German MEP Arne Gericke and French MEP Nicolas Bay, the latter a member of Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally. (It is not suggested that the above committed criminal acts or knew that Gill was taking bribes.)
“Farage says he knew nothing of Gill’s criminal activities or his ties with Moscow. Nevertheless, these were strange goings-on, with Russian emissaries warmly received at the doors of the Ukip delegation’s workplace. Gill would go on to lead Reform, Farage’s current political party, in Wales. The symbiosis between Reform and Russia raised a question: why would a pro-British, pro-independence organisation collaborate with the Russians?
“Gill served as Russia’s loyal proxy, wooing fellow MEPs over dinner to give anti-Ukraine commentary.
Many questions remain about Gill and his connections. Harding asks "How extensive was this spy ring? Were there other members of Gill’s hard-right outfit whose connections to Russia had not yet been fully exposed? And what about MEPs from other countries?
“The academic and writer Anton Shekhovtsov stumbled across Gill while researching a Polish pro-Russian activist, Janusz Niedźwiecki, who was arrested in 2021 on charges of spying for Moscow. Niedźwiecki and Voloshyn had arranged Gill’s Ukraine trips. ‘I presume Gill is not the only politician who took bribes, but he is the one who got caught. The affair is only the tip of the iceberg in a broader web of influence operations,’ Shekhovtsov said.”
