The secretive businessman Yury Lopatynskyy who was born in Ukraine and brought up in the United States, has close links to the Russian financial system and is believed to have made his fortune in Moscow after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Among his portfolio of investments is a large part of Charlotte Square in Edinburgh where the first minister’s official residence Bute House is located, an award-winning wine range called Chateau de la Combe and an estate in Argyll. However his alleged links to the Russian intelligence services have attracted the most interest. In 2017 papers leaked to a German newspaper showed that he was a director of a firm called BAMI First Mercantile Limited. Among its other directors was Arne Treholt, a Norwegian who served eight years in prison for selling secret information to Russia and Iraq. In a debate in Parliament on the 17th of January, Liam Byrne MP went as far as naming Yury Lepatynskyy as a person with “close connections to the SVR and F