The trail that led me to alleged Russian asset living in UK
Britain’s warmhearted response to the Homes for Ukraine scheme has been one of the few edifying moments since Russia’s attack on Kyiv 15 months ago.
Over 124,000 Ukrainians have been welcomed, and the administrative difficulties that beset the scheme are long past.
But today new questions must, unfortunately, be asked.
Six months ago I received an encrypted tip-off that I began to investigate: a Ukrainian businessman suspected of being a Russian “asset” was living in the UK with his family thanks to the Homes for Ukraine scheme.
The trail led me to America. I have since pored over hundreds of pages of US intelligence documents, internal FBI emails – and met intelligence sources from the UK, US and Ukraine.
But it was over a plate of pasta in a closed Italian restaurant that the significance became clear.
I was meeting a former FBI agent to tell him that the businessman they had spent years investigating was now living in the UK. “He shouldn’t be a free man, frankly,” the source told me, one of several security officials angered by this turn of events.
Not only was this businessman free, but in order to join him in London, his family had used a flagship UK programme to help people fleeing Russia’s brutal invasion.
Despite this investigation, I do not suggest the scheme has been a failure: the opposite.
It has provided a lifeline for many, and the generous people who have opened their homes cannot be praised enough.
But many will share the incredulity of the former FBI agent who asked me: “How the f*** is this guy living freely in the UK?”
