{"id":17363,"date":"2025-01-19T08:37:58","date_gmt":"2025-01-19T07:37:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/19\/the-westminster-whistleblower-how-my-friend-sergei-tried-to-expose-the-kremlin-plot-against-britain\/"},"modified":"2025-01-19T08:37:58","modified_gmt":"2025-01-19T07:37:58","slug":"the-westminster-whistleblower-how-my-friend-sergei-tried-to-expose-the-kremlin-plot-against-britain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/19\/the-westminster-whistleblower-how-my-friend-sergei-tried-to-expose-the-kremlin-plot-against-britain\/","title":{"rendered":"The Westminster whistleblower: how my friend Sergei tried to expose the Kremlin plot against Britain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Russian-born UK citizen and Tory party activist Sergei Cristo fought to make MI5 sit up and take notice of the Russian political interference operation now threatening democracy in Britain \u2013 and around the world<\/p>\n<p>In the dark days of the spring in 2022, as Russian troops terrorised Bucha and every day brought shocking new scenes of Ukrainians fleeing for their lives, I rang an old acquaintance, Sergei Cristo. Cristo is a Russian-born British citizen and I prepared for what I suspected might be a long conversation: he is a talker. He was born in Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia, but he moved to Britain when he was 19 and it\u2019s fair to say we\u2019re not the most obvious of allies. He loves the royal family and is a passionate Conservative party activist. He used to be on the committee of a donor club for young Conservatives, \u201cand then I became vice-chairman, I knew the cabinet, I knew the leader, everybody\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019s not kidding. He has photos of himself with everyone from Margaret Thatcher to Boris Johnson, and his favourite place to hang out used to be the Carlton Club, the grand Conservative private members\u2019 club in central London.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/tv-and-radio\/2025\/jan\/19\/the-westminster-whistleblower-how-my-friend-sergei-tried-to-expose-the-kremlin-plot-against-britain\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><br \/>\n<img src=\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/7e941b647c0fd6026a0f88f2d45abb52e63531ad\/0_473_4724_2835\/master\/4724.jpg?width=140&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=9a08984ebd1fb50dddc7602237ec0192\" title=\"The Westminster whistleblower: how my friend Sergei tried to expose the Kremlin plot against Britain\" \/>Russian-born UK citizen and Tory party activist Sergei Cristo fought to make MI5 sit up and take notice of the Russian political interference operation now threatening democracy in Britain \u2013 and around the world<br \/>\nIn the dark days of the spring in 2022, as Russian troops terrorised Bucha and every day brought shocking new scenes of Ukrainians fleeing for their lives, I rang an old acquaintance, Sergei Cristo. Cristo is a Russian-born British citizen and I prepared for what I suspected might be a long conversation: he is a talker. He was born in Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia, but he moved to Britain when he was 19 and it\u2019s fair to say we\u2019re not the most obvious of allies. He loves the royal family and is a passionate Conservative party activist. He used to be on the committee of a donor club for young Conservatives, \u201cand then I became vice-chairman, I knew the cabinet, I knew the leader, everybody\u201d.<br \/>\nHe\u2019s not kidding. He has photos of himself with everyone from Margaret Thatcher to Boris Johnson, and his favourite place to hang out used to be the Carlton Club, the grand Conservative private members\u2019 club in central London. Continue reading&#8230;Technology | The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Russian-born UK citizen and Tory party activist Sergei Cristo fought to make MI5 sit up and take notice of the Russian political interference operation now threatening democracy in Britain \u2013 and around the world In the dark days of the spring in 2022, as Russian troops terrorised Bucha and every day brought shocking new scenes &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/19\/the-westminster-whistleblower-how-my-friend-sergei-tried-to-expose-the-kremlin-plot-against-britain\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The Westminster whistleblower: how my friend Sergei tried to expose the Kremlin plot against Britain<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":17364,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17363"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}