Former Reform UK Wales leader jailed for Russian bribery scheme

A former leader of Reform UK in Wales has been sentenced to ten and a half years in prison after admitting he took bribes to promote Russian-aligned narratives inside the European Parliament. Nathan Gill, 52, pleaded guilty to eight counts of bribery at the Old Bailey on Friday, concluding a counter-terrorism investigation that uncovered a covert payment scheme running from December 2018 to July 2019.

Gill, a father of seven from Hull who served as an MEP for six years, accepted thousands of pounds from Oleg Voloshyn, a Ukrainian politician later sanctioned by both the United States and the United Kingdom as a pawn of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB). The payments were disguised in WhatsApp messages using the codewords "xmas gifts" and "post cards", according to prosecutors. In return, Gill delivered speeches in Strasbourg scripted by Voloshyn, hosted a high-profile event for Viktor Medvedchuk, a Ukrainian oligarch whose daughter has Vladimir Putin as godfather, and attempted to recruit other MEPs to the cause.

The WhatsApp trail that exposed the scheme

The Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command first intercepted Gill in 2021 as he prepared to board a flight to Moscow. On his phone, officers found a message stating he would be "fairly rewarded" for organising the Medvedchuk event at the European Parliament. That discovery opened a wider examination of Gill's communications with Voloshyn, a former member of Ukraine's parliament for the pro-Russian Opposition Platform, For Life party.

Over seven months in 2018 and 2019, the two men exchanged messages arranging payments and coordinating parliamentary interventions. Voloshyn helped prepare two of Gill's contributions to plenary debates, in December 2018 and March 2019, both defending the TV channels 112 Ukraine and NewsOne from threatened closure by the Ukrainian authorities. Both channels were connected to Medvedchuk. In emails to the BBC, Voloshyn described the arrangement as an "advocacy campaign" to help "opposition TV stations fight for survival"; the US Treasury, by contrast, designated him in 2022 as an FSB pawn engaged in undermining Ukraine's government.

Medvedchuk's Strasbourg platform

The centrepiece of the bribery scheme was a July 2019 meeting at the European Parliament where Medvedchuk presented what he called a peace plan involving talks between Kyiv and Russian-backed separatists in the Donbas. The event was broadcast on Kremlin-controlled television. Gill arranged the meeting, invited fellow MEPs, and received a promise of at least €10,000 (approximately £8,600 at the time) for securing the attendance of other parliamentarians.

Two of those present were Brexit Party MEPs Rupert Lowe and James Wells. Lowe, now an independent MP after a public break with Nigel Farage, said Gill had asked him and others to attend an event with a "very pro-Russian slant" and that he agreed due to Gill's position as head of the delegation. He later called the bribery "treasonous". Wells said he left after half an hour, unsure why he was there, and described the event in retrospect as "dodgy as hell". Both insisted they had no knowledge of any money changing hands.

Colleagues caught in the net

Gill was not the only MEP to speak up for Medvedchuk's broadcasters. In the October 2018 debate, former UKIP MEPs David Coburn and Jonathan Arnott also defended the channels. Coburn sat with Gill and Voloshyn on an "international editorial board" for 112 Ukraine. The BBC has not received a response from Coburn. Arnott, however, told the BBC documentary Bribes, Lies and the British Politician that he criticised Russia in his speech and would have gone to the police if offered money. "I find the very suggestion that when I'm criticising Russia, that somehow I'll be in any way reacting to something Russia would have wanted me to do... it's provably nonsensical," he said.

Arnott added that Gill had framed the threat to the channels as a freedom of speech issue. The stations were eventually shut down in 2021 under President Volodymyr Zelensky, after President Petro Poroshenko, according to academic expert Anton Shekhovtsov, "did not dare to sanction the channels" during the period of Gill's interventions.

A wider Russian influence network

The Gill case sits inside a broader pattern of Russian influence operations targeting European politicians. Voloshyn's wife, Nadia Sass, was photographed with Nigel Farage outside the European Parliament, though all parties describe it as a one-off encounter. Farage told the BBC he declined Gill's 2019 invitation to visit Ukraine, saying "you must be off your rocker" and describing Ukraine as "one of the most corrupt countries on Earth". Voloshyn also stated Farage had "absolutely nothing to do with it". A Reform UK spokesman noted Farage meets thousands of people annually, many of whom request photographs.

Janusz Niedźwiecki, the Polish national who arranged Gill's first Ukraine trip in May 2018, a visit coinciding with a Soviet victory commemoration event attended by Voloshyn, is awaiting trial in Poland on spying charges. That trip occurred four years after Russia's annexation of Crimea and during active conflict in the Donbas. Niedźwiecki's role suggests a layered operation: a Polish intermediary facilitating access for a British MEP to a Ukrainian politician acting on behalf of a Russian-aligned oligarch.

The network extends further. In 2023, Czech authorities shut down Voice of Europe, a platform accused of paying unnamed European politicians to amplify Russian narratives. Medvedchuk was alleged to be behind it. Lord Beamish, chairman of the UK's Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee, said the Gill case was "not unusual" and that "there are other examples in Europe where similar things have happened".

Political fallout and party response

Nigel Farage, now leader of Reform UK, said he was "stunned" that Gill, a former Mormon bishop, would have engaged in such conduct. He denied any knowledge of the "shameful activities" and condemned them "in every possible way". Farage has faced persistent accusations of being soft on Russia; in a recent interview he called Vladimir Putin a "really bad dude" and said he would order Russian jets shot down if they entered NATO airspace.

Gill's political trajectory ran from UKIP to the Brexit Party to Reform UK. He was first elected as a UKIP MEP in 2014, led the party in Wales, and won a seat in the Welsh Parliament in 2016. He was one of only two MEPs to follow Farage from UKIP into the Brexit Party in 2019, serving as head of delegation with responsibility for "keeping them in line". Prosecutors say his first bribery offence coincided with his departure from UKIP in December 2018.

Law enforcement perspective

Commander Dominic Murphy of the Met's Counter Terrorism Command said the case "goes to the heart of our democratic values" and vowed: "We will not hesitate to investigate and disrupt anyone seeking to harm or undermine these values and our national security." The investigation spanned multiple jurisdictions, with Voloshyn's phone examined by FBI investigators at Dulles Airport in July 2021. That same month, the Speaker of the House of Commons warned MPs against engaging with Voloshyn and Niedźwiecki, both alleged to have sought support from UK politicians to "promote Russian foreign policy objectives".