# Russian billionaire donates £100 million to UK charity

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2006/11/16/russian-billionaire-donates-100-million-uk-charity/
- Published: 2006-11-16T00:00:00+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

Billionaire Russian businessman Alexander Lebedev has transferred his £100 million
holding in a Russian aircraft leasing company to the Raisa Gorbachev Fund, the UK
charity that helps Russian children with leukaemia. This is probably the biggest
donation by a Russian to a charity.
The donation was made primarily to protest against
the Russian government’s to absorb his company into a state-owned enterprise. Mr
Lebedev told The Times: “I am giving this stake to charity. If the (Russian) Government
mistreats the stake, they are mistreating Russian children with leukaemia.”

Mr Lebedev helped his friend and business partner Mikhail Gorbachev set up the charity
in memory of the former leader of the Soviet Union’s wife, who died of leukaemia
in 1999.

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