The British Ukrainian Society

In June last year. I shared an open letter to Lord Risby in which I reminded him of the 'Marshall Plan' for Ukraine which was introduced to the BUS in 2007

Risby now has a role in the 'Marshall Plan' advocated by Dmitri Firtash. 

The following content derives from The Firtash Octopus as published by EuroZine last September:

Austrian-based Ukrainian Modernization Agency has a "sister" organization in the United Kingdom, in the upmarket London district of Knightsbridge. Another base of Firtash's interest is located near the Mandarin Oriental hotel and One Hyde Park, the fashionable new residential complex, which is home to another Ukrainian oligarch, Rinat Akhmetov.

The agent of Firtash's influence in the United Kingdom is the British Ukrainian Society (BUS), an organization headquartered at 25 Knightsbridge.[2] Its publicly declared mission is "strengthening the ties between Ukraine and the United Kingdom at all levels" by "providing a platform for closer contact and cooperation between the two countries in the fields of politics, business, culture, education and science", according to the organization's website.

In fact, BUS was founded in February 2007 as a private organization with two directors: Robert Shetler-Jones and Richard Spring. The latter, since being awarded a life peerage, has been known as Lord Risby. Since March 2015 he has also been mentioned as a founder of the Ukrainian Modernization Agency.

Robert Shetler-Jones is one of the people closest to Firtash. He was the CEO of Firtash's parent company Group DF from its inception until August 2012. Currently he is a member of the Group DF Supervisory Council, chaired by Firtash.

BUS resides in the same office building in Knightsbridge as Scythian Limited, a company run by by Shetler-Jones (he is listed as its director in the BUS founding documents).

Until he received his peerage, Lord Risby was a member of the House of Commons. As an MP, Richard Spring, as he then was, was obliged to declare payments he received in compensation for his work in his capacity as BUS director. In 2007 and 2008 the future Lord declared receiving between 35,000 and 40,000 British pounds annually for this work.

Apart from Lord Risby, Firtash's circle of UK lobbyists includes the MP John Whittingdale. He is the former chair of the parliamentary group on cooperation with the Ukrainian parliament and a frequent target of criticism from the LGBT community for his homophobic views. Following the 2015 election, Whittingdale was appointed secretary of state for culture, media and sport.

Whittingdale has attended numerous events abroad, with expenses paid by BUS. In particular, he took part in Ukraine Tomorrow, the Vienna meeting that launched the Ukrainian Modernization Agency. Over the past five years BUS has reimbursed Whittingdale for travel expenses to the tune of almost 15,000 pounds, as documented on the British parliament website.

In addition to Lord Risby and John Whittingdale, another man working for Firtash is Lord Oxford. Raymond Asquith, the third Earl of Oxford and Asquith, sits on the supervisory council of Firtash's holding company Group DF, along with another British trustee, Robert Shetler-Jones.

Until 1997, Lord Oxford was a career diplomat, serving first as first secretary at the British embassy in Moscow, then as counsellor at the British embassy in Kyiv, while also working for the UK secret services as an agent for MI6.

Prior to his peerage, Lord Oxford ran the lobbying firm Asquith & Granovsky (later Asquith & Granovski) Associates for several years. The company also used the consultancy services of Lord Risby, then still Richard Spring MP. Granovsky's and Lord Oxford's company paid Spring 35,000-40,000 pounds in 2006; subsequently he started receiving payments from BUS.

This provides further evidence that the British Ukrainian Society is but a front for Dmytro Firtash's agents of influence – Vladimir Granovsky, Robert Shetler-Jones and Lords Oxford and Risby.

An eyewitness described to the author how Lord Oxford tried to influence Ukrainian politics. In the spring of 2014, after the Revolution of Dignity, three members of the Ukrainian parliament visited London. They were Petro Poroshenko, who was running for president; leader of the UDAR political party Vitali Klitschko; and the Fatherland party member Andriy Shevchenko. Their visit was scheduled to include meetings with prime minister David Cameron as well as with representatives of the UK opposition. According to my source, Lord Oxford tried to get into the Ukrainian politicians' meeting with the then Labour leader Ed Miliband, and almost managed to enter the room booked for the talks as a member of the Ukrainian delegation. When questions were raised about his presence he introduced himself as an adviser to Viktor Klichko, thus confirming, once again, the rumours of Firtash's influence over the boxer-turned-politician.

Apart from the individuals listed above, Firtash enjoys the PR support of Lord Bell, former political consultant to Margaret Thatcher, who helped her win three parliamentary elections. Lord Bell, whom Thatcher rewarded with a peerage, uses the company Bell Pottinger to represent his clients' interests. The person who provides the link between Firtash and Bell is Anthony Fisher, senior consultant with Bell Pottinger and director of the Firtash Foundation. And the list of clients in Fisher's Curzon PR portfolio includes members of Ukraine's government under Viktor Yanukovych.

Anthony Fisher, jointly with the Ukrainian oligarch's top manager Robert Shetler-Jones, is a co-founder of Scythian Limited. The company was engulfed in scandal a few years ago when British prime minister David Cameron refused to appoint Dame Pauline Neville-Jones as national security adviser after being warned that she had received payments from Scythian Limited in the order of tens of thousands of pounds.

Scythian Limited, whose owner works for Firtash, has made occasional donations to the Conservative Party totalling 63,000 pounds, according to the UK Electoral Commission.[3]

In addition to investing in politicians, Firtash has supported education and the arts in an attempt to clean up his image. He has funded a centre of Ukrainian Studies, which was set up in Cambridge in 2008, introducing a grants programme in 2010. Among the attendees of a private gathering at the Saatchi Gallery, Firtash Foundation features in the list of gallery patrons immediately after Chanel.

It seems that Firtash had intended to turn Britain into a foothold for growing his business, developing political links and whitewashing his CV. In 2013, he acquired property in London not far from the BUS office, at 12a Brompton Square. His wife Lada Firtash is listed as the owner of the property, the value of which was estimated at 1,950,000 pounds shortly before they bought it.

However, the couple's plans were seriously upset by the oligarch's arrest in Vienna in March 2014. Even though Austria has turned down the US extradition request, the FBI warrant for his arrest remains in force worldwide. And to challenge the extradition request in a court would cost him much more in the United Kingdom than in Austria, and the chances of success would be much slimmer.