Voloshyn said his phone was examined when stopped by FBI investigators at Washington DC’s Dulles Airport in July 2021.
That month, the Speaker of the House of Commons warned MPs against talking to Voloshyn and Niedźwiecki as both allegedly had sought the support of UK politicians to “promote Russian foreign policy objectives”.
The US government sanctioned Voloshyn in 2022 and called him a “pawn” of the FSB, Russia’s security service, and accused him of undermining Ukraine’s government.
That same year, the UK government also sanctioned Voloshyn and Medvedchuk, accusing both of “destabilising Ukraine”.
Anton Shekhovstov, an academic expert in Russian influencing campaigns, told the BBC that Voloshyn and his wife were active in building European networks for Medvedchuk.
He said the strategy of getting MEPs to defend the pro-Russian TV channels was effective and the investment in Gill “returned with profit”.
Shekhovstov said when Gill was asked to speak up for them in 2018, they’d become “instruments of Russian or pro-Russian propaganda”.
“President Petro Poroshenko at that time did not dare to sanction the channels,” said Shekhovstov.
The channels were shut in 2021 under the presidency of Ukraine’s current leader Volodomyr Zelensky.
