this is bbc news. the headlines: in a speech to mark one month since the russian invasion, president volodymyr zelensky has appealed to people all over the world to come out onto the streets to show their support for ukraine. speaking in english, president zelensky asked people to bring out their ukrainian symbols. president biden is in brussels for an emergency meeting of nato and a g7 summit to discuss ukraine. nato is expected to agree to deploy additional troops to eastern europe. on the eve of the gathering, britain announced it would send thousands more anti—tank weapons to ukraine. the us president has led tributes to madeleine albright, the first woman to serve as secretary of state, who's died at the age of 8a.

he called her a force who had turned the tide of history. eastern european leaders remembered her as a champion of nato enlargement. now on bbc news, the media show. why is it only now that the mainstream press has put russian oligarchs in the media spotlight? hello. as governments round the world race to sanction associates of vladimir putin, the british media is turning its attention to the role russian oligarchs have played in public life. this week, an edition of panorama aired allegations about the source of roman abramovich's wealth. at the weekend, the sunday times reported that newspaper owner evgeny lebedev was made a peer despite the concerns of the security services. and the gossip sites are all over

the gilded lifestyles of the oligarch kids and their swanky homes around the world. but why is it only now that the mainstream press has put the oligarchs in the spotlight? what stopped them before? just some of the big questions for my guests today. they are paul caruana galizia, who's a journalist behind a new podcast for tortoise media called lebedev: lord of siberia. adam bienkov is political editor at the byline times. laura kayali is tech correspondent at politico. natalia antelava is a journalist and co—founder of the news site coda story. and lionel barber was editor of the financial times from 2005 to 2020. he's now an investor in the new european. and, lionel, just if we start with you, the last time you were on the media show, you had just been to interview vladimir putin. what chance today, do you think, that a journalist could get an audience with that president? extremely limited, under 1%. maybe in seven weeks, if this is over, he might — they might do

something, a staged event. but a one on one like the financial times did in 2019, very unlikely. and by the way, it did take five years to get there, to the kremlin for the post—midnight meeting. and when you did get there, what did you talk about? we talked about everything from the failed assassination of sergei skripal, which he dismissed, mr putin, as a story worth less than five kopeks, to the relations with china, the intervention in syria and, notably, two stories that came out — one was when he declared, under questioning, the idea that liberalism, the liberal idea, he said was obsolete. so he really felt the west was in decline, decadent, preoccupied by secondary questions of genderfluidity, and he also said that his risk appetite had gone up, basically,

"because he who does not take the risk," he said, quoting a russian proverb, "does not get to drink the champagne." ok, so do you recognise the man you see now? do you think he's changed? i see him a lot puffier, by the way. he looks to have put on a bit more weight. and obviously, the effects of two years�* isolation during covid has got to have had some effect. i think the circle�*s gone narrower, and i can exclusively reveal that when henry foy and i did sit down with him in the kremlin, the table was a good shorter than the one he's currently using. right, i was going to say, you were right at the other end of a very long table, then — you were closer? no, it's the same room, though. it was the cabinet room with the tsars, peter the great, catherine the great, and nicholas i. 0k, well, let's start closer to home, because the sunday times this weekend ran a story questioning why the editor of the evening standard, evgeny lebedev,

not a household name by any means, i should say, seemed to have such a good — such good access to borisjohnson. paul caruana galizia, you've explored this question too for tortoise media. take us back to the beginning. i mean, in 2009, the russian businessman and former kgb agent alexander lebedev bought the london evening standard for £1. his son, evgeny, became the paper's publisher. a year later, they bought the independent, also for £1. just tell us a bit about it all. so, we release the podcast on the monday before the sunday times followed it up, and it was commissioned actually in december. and back then, we thought it would be this really colourful profile of evgeny and his father alexander and, really, how they use the newspapers to build a lot of friendships with celebrities, people from the theatre world, so they ran these theatre awards. and politicians, in which famously, borisjohnson. it was a kind of —

almost like an influence machine that they ran from these newspapers and threw their parties. but of course, the reporting changed character in february when russia invaded ukraine. so we started looking more closely at other aspects of the lebedevs. ok, when it comes to the owning of the independent, evening standard, i mean, mr lebedev sr, alexander lebedev, already owned various bits of the media in russia, i think, as did some other oligarchs. is that more than just a business decision, and how did you read the way they then bought into the british media? sure. it is much more than a business decision. so, as a kind of strategy survival for oligarchs, you need a lot more than wealth. you need some means of buying influence and promoting yourself really as a liberal or western—leaning figure, which is what a lot of the early oligarchs did.

so, in russia, alexander bought a large chunk of novaya gazeta with gorbachev, and he also bought a smaller tabloid. there is some irony in that — that tabloid, in 2008, reported allegations that putin was having an affair with a young gymnast, and within a few days, the tabloid was shutdown, and it was, really, within a couple of weeks of that that alexander and evgeny started the process to buy the evening standard. so when we reported on that deal, for us, it was also about the openness of the british establishment in which we count the press, to — for money. so the then—owner of the newspaper, lord rothermere, was looking to offload it because it was a loss—making enterprise, and i think it's also significant that the deal was set up by another newspaper editor, geordie greig, who then went on to edit the newspaper.

so, it's a story about how closely bound up a lot of these people are with the oligarchy. 0k, well, let me bring in adam bienkov, because you published a big piece for byline times on saturday called thejohnson—lebedev letters. what did you find? so, i first became aware of the relationship between boris johnson and evgeny lebedev about ten years ago, in 2012, when i spotted on the mayor of london's gift and hospitality register that he declared a trip to italy, paid for by lebedev, and i thought that was a curious thing at the time, because it wasn't in his official diaries, hadn't been announced in any way. so i started to ask questions about it, but it wasn't really picked up by anyone else at the time, even when it sort of later appeared that this was an annual enterprise. he kept on being sent out there, and even several years after that, when we learnt about this trip in 2018, when he ditched his security detail and attended this party,

and it wasn't really picked up on many other news organisations, so i was interested in it, i submitted some freedom of information act requests just to see — just kind of a fishing expedition, really, to see how this relationship was built between boris johnson and lebedev. and i obtained all of the correspondence them, all of the formal correspondence between them right back from the start of their relationship in 2009 up until when he left office as mayor of london. and it's just — it's following on from what paul was saying, itjust kind of gives you the nuts and bolts of how this kind of influence operation works, so — and it works both ways. so, by buying the evening standard, that's obviously the only paper really covering the london mayoralty. and so, for borisjohnson, he needs to have a good relationship with lebedev. and some of these early letters show how he reaches out to lebedev, how they meet for a series of lunches, and in one of them, johnson gives a memoir of all of his pet projects that he would like — he said that he'd be thrilled to get the support of lebedev for these pet projects.

but it also works the other way. so, in some of the correspondence, lebedev is pushing johnson to back a new arts festival, which would be held and organised by lebedev. and the purpose of this festival we understand, from the minutes that have been released as well, that is to transform russia's global perceptions in london. what's also interesting about it is that lebedev, in these minutes, it suggests that lebedev is going to reach out to the kremlin in order to secure funding for it. let me just read you what evgeny lebedev has said in response to all of this in the evening standard this week. he wrote, "i am not a security risk to this country, "which i love. "my father, a long time ago, "was a foreign intelligent agent of the kgb, "but i'm not some agent of russia. "the editorial coverage in the evening standard "and the independent, of which i'm also a shareholder "of russia and its activities over the time of my involvement "in those titles makes that clear." and then he obviously adds as well, "i've called on president putin "to end the invasion of the country" —

that's ukraine — "in the most public way possible." paul, ijust wanted to bring you in. mr lebedev is now a peer sitting in the house of lords. sunday times this week alleged that he was deemed a security risk during the vetting process, but that boris johnson disagreed with this analysis. i think you've been trying to find out exactly what happened. that's right. so we know that, really, just a few weeks within borisjohnson being elected prime minister in december 2019, he decided to make evgeny a member of the house of lords, so it was his personal nomination. we know, through documents we got through f0|s, that the house of lords appointments commission, a sort of semi—independent body, really, part of the cabinet office, that can vet, but not veto nominees, was chasing evgeny for some personal information, the kind of stuff they routinely ask of nominees. the difference in evgeny�*s case

is that they turned to the security services for advice. it was only on march 17 that they finally got that advice, and they met to discuss it in a committee room in parliament, and were so disturbed by it, they immediately wrote to the prime minister, saying, "we feel deeply uncomfortable about this "nomination, about evgeny�*s nomination. "will you please reconsider "or would you consider an alternative?" which they proposed. and he did indeed end up becoming a peer. that's right, he became a peer. so, two days after that report was discussed, evgeny met with borisjohnson at downing street, and a few days after that, borisjohnson, the long arm short of it, pushed evgeny�*s name through, so evgeny took his seat later that year. lionel, let me bring you in here, just for your

response to all of that, but also, you would have watched the entrance of the lebedevs into british media and high society. what did you make of it at the time, and what do you reflect on it now? well, i had lunch with evgeny when he asked me about what he should be doing, both as a proprietor and what he could do with the evening standard, which has been said, was loss—making. i also met the father in moscow in 2008 on a trip where he was very much the man injeans with the very expensive leather shoes. nothing wrong with that, but you could feel that, you know, ex kgb. but we need to be clear about a few things here, and i'm not — i don't want to discredit the reporting, but context, please. first of all, i mean, proprietors, that's what they do. they want to ingratiate themselves with the establishment and they often get peerages, even editors get knighthoods and various honours, and prime ministers use patronage. johnson's appalling in this respect. so, first of all, i'm not surprised that he wanted

to give him a peerage. second, the lebedevs, and particularly evgeny, were very proud of the work they raised, the money they raised for the raisa gorbachev cancer foundation. they had gorbachev in the evening standard newsroom. putin despises gorbachev. he sees gorbachev as the man who helped collapse the soviet union, ending russia as a great power. so, i mean, it's a strange thing to have that kind of closer relationship with gorbachev. now, third, i would draw a distinction between the father and the son. the son always struck me as a bit of a hedonist. i mean... crosstalk. i didn't go, by the way... neither did i, i'd like to say! i was not at the airport seeing a very dishevelled foreign secretary, who for some reason, didn't want his security detail around. borisjohnson.

but ijust think we need to be careful about adopting a kind of mccarthy—est attitude to all russians, and also understand that who was going to buy it? do we have a fit and proper test? i mean, newspapers are not football clubs. but the lebedevs put in money and, from what i could tell, and i have had conversations, 'cause i bumped into georgie greig occasionally, he did not feel the heavy hand of evgeny lebedev on his shoulder when he was making big editorial decisions. and i have spoken to other editors who've said that too, absolutely. well, that's the point. so, again, ithink you need to look very clearly. now, just one other point about the intelligence services — the sunday times, that has done great reporting, made a big deal of the fact thatjohn sawers, who is the boss of m16, had raised objections to evgeny lebedev attending the lunch with the editor. do you know something?

the fact — i went to lunches at m16, mi5 about once a year. i would never have dreamt of bringing the proprietor, because you don't want — you're a journalist. and i'm sure that sawers, who i do know, i've not asked him, would have thought, "well, who the hell? "i'm the one who's making the decisions "about who comes to my lunch," and i think that was why he didn't want evgeny lebedev in, not that he thought he was some kind of...lord haw haw in disguise. we should say that we invited evgeny lebedev to join us on the programme, but we have not heard back. but someone who has worked with him is natalia. you made a film for bbc newsnight back in 2012. you accompanied him to belarus for an interview. mr lebedev had secured an interview. what was evgeny lebedev like? he was very polished and very

underwhelming, i would say. he came across as a rich man's son. i didn't hang out with him. we had one meeting ahead of time. we didn't start off very well because he approached newsnight and it was very much part of his transformation of a party boy into a much more serious figure in the british public life. he approached newsnight with a suggestion for a collaboration and they called me up and asked if i wanted to do a collaboration with lebedev who had secured a incredible interview with europe's last dictator, the belarusian president. who doesn't normally do interviews. i thought it was... i had no desire to do a collaboration with evgeny lebedev. he was the son of a russian

oligarch, and of a kgb agent. it is ver disputed whether there is such a thing as a former kgb agent. to quote vladimir putin. he once said in one of his famous press conferences, he said once a spy always a spy. whether or not that is the case, that was the father not the son and we are talking about the son. but what was happening with the independent at the same time, evgeny lebedev had just taken over the newspaper and it was very clear about his reputation, him trying to come across as a different kind of figure and i knew that he had gone to africa on various reporting trips and also cutting jobs at the independent. let me interrupt you here. it will be good to hear a clip from it. one interesting thing about this is i don't know how it is going to go.

i think it's the first one that i have done where i really do not know what to expect. apparently, according to his press secretary he is up for a fight. natalia, as you were saying, he was the boss of the independent not a journalist. i wonder what you made of him as a interviewer in that situation. he was terrible, he was terrible! it was a 11—hour interview. it went on and on forever, he asked terrible questions and very weird questions. there was a bizarre moment in the interview when he turned to lukashenko and said, what do you think about group sex? goodness, it is a bit early for that on the radio!— goodness, it is a bit early for that on the radio! there was a lona that on the radio! there was a long awkward _ that on the radio! there was a long awkward pause. - and lukashenko looked at me and i had to kind of move in. he gestured for me to move on.

we did an interview about lebedev interviewing lukashenko. they did not want me asking any questions. he secured the interview, and you were along for the ride to film it. i think we will move on from there. and move away from evgeny lebedev and back to the question that i asked at the start of the show — why is it only now that we are reading investigations into russian influence into the uk and i'm thinking particularly about roman abramovich. lionel barber, you will know about the legal perils of writing about oligarchs. has the risk of litigation from london's top law forms suppressed reporting about them until now? i am not carrying water for the the financial times, but i can assure you that we did write about the influence of russians in london and i still have letters from the law firms threatening us.

this was literally hung up by my boots on saturday morning. we've seen the names of the law firms. we saw them in the house of lords when there was testifying earlier this week. crucially, the problem is, this is a very interesting question about the word oligarchs. some of these very rich people sent a very tough letters insisting they were not oligarchs because this refers to the late 1990s where some people became very, very rich very quickly, gaining control of natural resources in the 1990s when we basically had the wild west out in russia. some of them have since become great philanthropists. you think of len blavatnik, he owns warner music. he makes very clear he's ukrainian, yup.

but the crucial point, the crucial point, katy, is some of... i think you've got to distinguish between groups of oligarchs. some of them have become great philanthropists. they've given money, tate modern, like len blavatnik, fridman, some of them are ukrainian, some of them own a football club, like mr abramovich. he also happened to be a governor in a siberian province. he does give money to charity. he doesn't sponsor art museums. but and then there are others who are much darker figures. i've interviewed one of them in russian, mr sechin, who controls rosneft. these are different categories of people. bottom line, the law is not in favour of investigating, public service investigations because of the balance on libel risk. that is essentially what those journalists from the ft and reuters was saying to the foreign select committee this

week. the difficulty of publishing the stories. the government was told that the london lawyers apply psychological pressure to journalists. do you recognise that? i do, actually. not on the level of some others because i was never threatened. but in general a lot of the most aggressive libel lawyers are centred on london and they targetjournalists not just in this country, in this jurisdiction, but overseas. they have targeted maltese journalists, for example. acting on behalf of maltese politicians claiming damages in england. politicians claiming damages in encland. �* . ., ., politicians claiming damages in endand, �* ., ., ., politicians claiming damages in encland. �* . ., ., ., england. and natalia, you have written about _ england. and natalia, you have written about the _ england. and natalia, you have written about the children - england. and natalia, you have written about the children of i written about the children of oligarchs?

yes, it is never easy with the oligarchs. l yes, it is never easy with the oligarchs. i suspect that there is a lawyer listening to this conversation as well. catherine belton is a great example of how hard it has been for her. i'm just going to change direction now because i want to pick up on something we talked about a few weeks ago which is the crackdown on russian media channels. laura is a tech correspondent at politico based in paris. it turns out blocking russian backed channels is not as simple as the eu hoped for. why not? it was not very easy legally, because it was a political decision. a political decision to ban that media from european soil. it was unprecedented, so the first question that needed to be answered was what legal grounds do you use to forbid media organisations from broadcasting in europe? and of course, rt and sputnik these are not your normal media organisations, but they use journalists with actual press

cards and press credentials. so what happened is european leaders realised that the media regulation was not going to cut it to ban rt and sputnik. and so they went the economic sanctions route. but rt is challenging in front of eu courts. and we will see if that is legally solid or not. is the onus on the companies to block these channels voluntarily? they were in the scope of the sanctions, so the online channels and telegram channels, youtube, facebook, all of that was in the scope, so they have been removed. all of that was in the scope, so they have removed them. it was legally binding for them to do so. but we are seeing mirror websites which are websites that copy banned websites, show the same information but with different urls.

it is harder to crack down on them. and on fringe platforms like 0dyssey, well—known among anti—vax covid—19 conspiracy groups. you can still find rt on that website. how successful do you think russian media has been at influencing opinion in the west. very little. i think a few people have got very rich, but i will not mention them on this programme. they appear on these kinds of shows as kind of apologists. having an english reporter, an english voice on rt which has a tiny audience i don't think is that influential. i do think there was important influence in other areas particularly on brexit. and in america... i'm sorry i'm going to have to stop you there. because we have run out of time. thank you to all of our guests.

to lionel, laura, natalia and paul. the media show will be back at the same time next week. for now, thank you for watching. goodbye. hello there. this fine, settled spell of spring weather is set to go on for several more days, with some warm sunshine by day. the nights still rather chilly with some frost and fog in places. 0ne subtle change, a bit more cloud in the north of the uk thanks to this weather front, a very weak affair. for the most part, high pressure is holding firm, and that is what's keeping things fine. but we are going to get off to quite a chilly start to the morning with those clear skies overhead, one or two fog patches around, some general mistiness here and there. that should tend to lift, and then we will see a lot of sunshine across england

and wales, just the small chance for a shower, especially over high ground in northern england. more cloud for scotland and northern ireland, the odd spot of rain, but even here, there will be some sunny spells. temperatures north to south, well, maybe 12 degrees for stornoway, but 18, 19, possibly 20 further south. but with that stagnant air, high pressure in charge, very light winds, air pollution is likely to be a problem. high levels of air pollution, particularly across eastern parts of england. as we go through thursday night, again, temperatures will drop away under the clear skies. there will be some fog patches here and there, more cloud rolling into northern ireland and parts of western scotland. towns and cities typically staying just above freezing, but one or two places in the countryside will drop below, and then for friday, well, more of the same. more sunshine and just a little patchy cloud for england and wales. northern ireland and scotland tending to see a little more cloud, especially up to the northwest. some rain for the northern isles, temperatures getting up to highs of 19, maybe 20 degrees in the sunniest spots. and high pressure is set to stay with us into the weekend. this front up to the north always bringing a bit more cloud, maybe some showery rain for shetland and for 0rkney.

there will be some patches of low cloud and fog elsewhere as well, particularly around some of the coasts, but some good spells of sunshine. temperatures dropping back maybe a little bit, 15 to 18 degrees. sunday morning could well start with some areas of low cloud and fog, perhaps most especially towards the southeast of england, tending to burn back towards the coasts. lots of sunshine, temperatures of 13 to 17 degrees. but into next week, quite a big change on the way. we will develop northerly winds and we will bring some much colder air southwards across the uk, so the temperatures will be much, much lower than they have been, and there could even be some wintry showers in places.

welcome to bbc news. i'm mark lobel. our top stories: as the war in ukraine enters its second month, the country's president calls for a show of support around the world. come from your offices, your homes, your schools and universities. come in the name of these. with ukrainian symbols to support freedom, to support life. nato says it'll double the number of battle groups deployed on its eastern flank in response to russia's invasion. a siege without end: we talk to one of the survivors of mariupol, the ukrainian city under relentless russian shelling. no return to class for the girls of afghanistan: the taliban orders secondary schools to remain closed.