Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Arts myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.In 2011, the former journalist and Conservative party fundraiser Sergei Cristo claims to have had an unusual rendezvous at the Carlton Club, a private members’ club in London and favoured hangout of Conservative MPs. The meeting was with a Russian diplomat named Sergey Nalobin, who was newly posted to the capital and whom Cristo describes as “smallish, fattish, baldish with spectacles”. Over tea, Nalobin is alleged to have asked gossipy questions about Tory bigwigs and said he knew of Russian companies that would like to donate money to the Conservative party. “That’s [what] raised a red flag,” recalls Cristo, who knew that under UK law such donations would be illegal.The new podcast Sergei & the Westminster Spy Ring concerns what it calls “the biggest spy story since the Cambridge five scandalised Britain in the second half of the 20th century”. Back then, the Soviet Union had inveigled its way into the upper echelons of the British establishment. Now history may be repeating itself with what is alleged to be a “suspected hostile influence campaign” in British politics involving Nalobin, whose family are said to have connections to the Russian spy agency FSB. This crowdfunded series, told in nine parts, is written and hosted by the investigative journalists Carole Cadwalladr and Peter Jukes. Cadwalladr, a Pulitzer Prize finalist who exposed the Cambridge Analytica scandal, has been doggedly investigating this story for nearly a decade, while Jukes is co-founder of the alternative news outlet Byline Times. Sergei & the Westminster Spy Ring also comes hot on the heels of Wondery’s The Spy Who and Goalhanger’s The Rest Is Classified, two podcasts capitalising on the current vogue for spy dramas. But where those series revel in historical tales of duplicity and derring-do, this one tells a story that is still unfolding.Cristo, a British citizen born and raised in Russia, would later report his discussion with Nalobin to MI5 and the Metropolitan Police, but both declined to investigate. Further alarm bells rang when Cristo heard about the formation of a group calling itself Conservative Friends of Russia (later re-named Westminster Russia Forum), a group devoted to fostering co-operation between Russia and the UK.We are only two episodes into this real-life drama, but listeners with an eye on current affairs will know where it is heading: Trump, Brexit, Boris Johnson, a poisoning in Salisbury, the invasion of Ukraine. But for the time being our main character is Cristo, who, apparently having been drawn into a plot by the Kremlin, soon starts to fear for his safety. I’m not sure it’s necessary to have him acting out his early phone calls with Nalobin, though his testimony, and the accompanying analysis from the hosts, is eye-opening and compelling. In recent years, we’ve heard much about Russian interference, a phrase that is often mired in murk. To understand what it might mean, Sergei & the Westminster Spy Ring is an excellent place to start.the-citizens.com/2024/12/sergei-and-the-westminster-spy-ring
