Bill Browder pleased to see Russia report explain the way Putin influences UK politics
21 July 2020, 13:20 | Updated: 21 July 2020, 13:21
Bill Browder gives his reaction to the release of the Russia Report
Anti-corruption campaigner Bill Browder tells James O'Brien he's pleased to see the way Putin uses oligarchs to influence British politics is fully outlined in the Russia report.
The much-delayed report was finally released this morning and criticised the British government, claiming it didn't do anything to stop Russia trying to influence UK politics.
It adds that Moscow did try to interfere with the Scottish independence referendum in 2014.
Bill Browder gave evidence for the report and was pleased that it notes the strong links British establishment and Russian oligarchs.
Speaking to James O'Brien, he said: "This report is a strong report. It basically says that the British government was asleep at the wheel as far as Russian interference.
"And it goes well beyond the conventional thought process and identifies a whole new network of people involved in Russia's interference and malign activities, which are people from our own country, which they call Western Enablers.
"They did a very good job of flushing out how Putin uses Russian oligarchs, who got their money illegally in Russia, and has them share some of that money with members of the British establishment from both main political parties who then do Russia's intelligence and political activities on behalf of the Russian government and against British national interests.
"The great thing about this report is that it flushed all that out into the open and talked about how big a problem that is.
"For people like me, that's been something we've seen for a long time and now it's in black and white in a parliamentary report, calling on the government to do something about it."
Mr Browder named names to the committee, which haven't been included in the report, but he maintains it was stronger than he expected.
He added: "They didn't pull punches.
"I provided 14 pages of evidence with names of Russian oligarchs, the names of the British establishment, who did what, how much money was paid and what they tried to accomplish.
"That didn't make it into the report, but the fact that they highlighted it and said it was one of the areas that needed to be fixed gave me great satisfaction this morning."
Watch his full interview at the top of the page.
