The Queen’s cousin Prince Michael of Kent, who was caught in a cash-for-access case bragging about his ties to the Putin regime, returns the Kremlin award of the Order of Friendship
- Prince Michael of Kent presented the Kremlin Order of Friendship.
- This was announced by the 79-year-old cousin of the Queen in a short statement.
- Previously, he was caught by undercover reporters bragging about arranging access to Putin’s cronies for cash.
Prince Michael of Kent, Queencousin, returned the Order of Friendship, awarded to him by the Kremlin after invasion of Ukraine.
Michael, 79, released the news in a brief statement on Thursday after he was honored in 2009 by then-president Dmitry Medvedev.
Prince Michael was previously caught in an access cash scandal after being caught boasting that he could form a relationship with Vladimir Putininner circle for a fee.
The statement said: “I can confirm that His Royal Highness Prince Michael of Kent is returning his Russian Order of Friendship. There will be no further comment.”
Prince Michael of Kent (left) returned his Kremlin-issued award after earlier presenting himself as a Russophile over his relative Tsar Nicholas II (right)
Prince Michael of Kent (right) received an honorary professorship from one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s oldest and most trusted friends.
Prince Michael is a relative of Nicholas II, the last Tsar of the Russian Empire, who was deposed and killed during the Russian Revolution.
Mikhail is strikingly similar to the Russian monarch, who was a cousin of his grandmother, Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna.
He attended the funeral of Nikolai and the entire Romanov family in 1998, 70 years after they were shot by the Bolsheviks, and is also a patron of organizations closely linked to Russia, such as the Russo-British Chamber of Commerce and the St. Gregory Foundation.
He attended an event with Vladimir Putin in 2003 at Kensington Palace to promote an obscure Russian martial art.
In 2020, the fictitious executives were reportedly told that Prince Michael of Kent could be hired to support their company in Vladimir Putin’s inner circle.
The Queen’s cousin told undercover reporters posing as South Korean investors in a virtual meeting that he could be hired for £10,000 a day to make “confidential” introductions to the Putin regime.
Prince Michael and Putin were joint patrons of an event at Kensington Palace dedicated to sambo, a little-known Russian martial art (pictured Prince Michael and Putin in London in 2003).
Journalists from Channel 4 Dispatches and The Sunday Times investigated allegations that Prince Michael and the Marquess of Reading sold their connections to the Russian regime.
Prince Michael said he would be “very happy” to work with the fictional “House of Headon,” who allegedly wanted to develop their business in Russia by establishing ties with Putin’s inner circle.
Prince Michael, the grandson of King George V, allegedly said he would support the “House of Headon” in the Kremlin for a fee of $200,000.
He added that his relationship with the state could “do some good” for the firm, billed as “a new specialty fund that invests in the most regal asset: gold.”
A spokesman for Prince Michael insisted that the royal family had “no special relationship with President Putin,” adding that they had not had contact since June 2003.