The Conservative Party should give donations to Ukrainian charities from the wife of a former Russian minister, a Labor MP told Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Lubov Chernukhin has donated around £2million to the Tories since 2012.
Figures from the Electoral Commission show she personally donated a further £80,250 at the end of 2021.
The Conservative Party said she was a British citizen with a “democratic right to donate to a political party”.
Ms Chernukhin’s lawyers told the BBC she had no comment to make on her donations, which are public knowledge.
They have previously said that their “conservative party donations have never been tainted by the Kremlin or any other influence”.
In recent public media comments, Ms Chernukhin condemned “any Russian military aggression in Ukraine” and called for the “tightest possible sanctions against Putin’s regime and his supporters”.
“I continue to hope that the UK and its global allies will continue to stand against the Kremlin and protect Ukraine and its people, now mired in the horrors of war,” Ms Chernukhin was quoted as saying.
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Ms Chernukhin and her husband, Vladimir Chernukhin, are both British citizens and entitled to make donations to British political parties and to vote in elections.
Mr Chernukhin, 53, a former deputy finance minister under President Vladimir Putin, left Russia for London in 2004 after being sacked by the president.
Since Putin ordered an invasion of Ukraine last week, the Conservative Party has been criticized for accepting donations from people with ties to Russia.
Labor MP Bill Esterson drew attention to Ms Chernukhin’s donations to the Conservative Party during the Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday.
Figures released by the Electoral Commission on Wednesday show Ms Chernukhin made two donations last year – £13,750 in October and £66,500 in December.
Mr Esterson asked Mr Johnson if he would direct the Conservative Party to hand over their humanitarian donations in Ukraine.
Mr Esterson said: “I know he doesn’t want to put everyone with Russian connections in the same category, and neither do I, but leaked documents show Vladimir Chernukhin receiving $8 million from a Russian MP, an ally of Putin which was later sanctioned by the United States.
“This is an opportunity for the Conservative Party and for the Prime Minister to end suspicions of a conflict of interest with Putin while showing solidarity with the Ukrainian people.”
In response, Mr Johnson said: “If we are to achieve a successful outcome in what we are trying to do jointly with Ukraine, it is imperative that we show that this is not about the Russian people, it is about the Putin regime .”
In a later statement, Labor Deputy Leader Angela Rayner said that “dangerous links to Putin’s cronies must be eradicated”.
“If this government is serious about taking the toughest measures to eradicate Putin’s influence in Britain, it must put its own house in order first,” she said.
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