Wife of Putin ally pays £45,000 to play tennis with Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson plays tennis in the grounds of the Palace of Westminster in London. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA. - Credit: PA

As the public ponders when the Russian interference report will be released, the Tories continue to take money off those with links to Vladimir Putin.

Lubov Chernukhin, wife of Russia’s former finance minister Vladimir Chernukhin, was one half of the pair who paid £90,000 for an opportunity to play tennis with Boris Johnson and the party’s co-chairman Ben Elliot.

It was one of the auction prizes the Tories sold off as part of its black and white fundraising ball.

Another saw a gold and silver Brexit Day coin sell for £60,000.

There were prizes to take a trip on a Lancaster bomber with Grant Shapps at the controls, and a chance to win a lunch in a prison restaurant alongside Robert Buckland.

The Sun reports that Chernukhin, whose husband served under Putin between 2000 and 2002, had previously paid for a £160,000 tennis match with Johnson and then prime minister David Cameron back in 2014.

It is reported the Tories also accepted £200,000 in donations from Chernukhin days after refusing to public the report into Russian interference in UK elections.