Princess Michael of Kent on waltzing with her husband in 1984

Prince Michael of Kent has long attracted controversy over his ties with Russian businessmen.

But this week, the Times published a new investigation alleging that the royal had ties to a Russian financier who is reportedly a close ally of a Putin-linked oligarch.

The 80-year-old’s office lobbied the Foreign Office to fast-track a UK visa for a Russian financier Maxim Viktorov — who is not on the sanctions list — in 2018 who then had links to sanctioned oligarch Boris Rotenberg, who is thought to be part of Putin’s inner circle.

The late Queen Elizabeth’s cousin, a qualified Russian interpreter, moved into consulting following a 20-year military career.

Here, Express.co.uk takes a look at Prince Michael’s career history and the wealth he has accrued over the years.

READ MORE: Prince Michael’s ties with Putin-linked Russian financier laid bare

While he is a “non-working” royal, Prince Michael reportedly undertakes more than 200 public engagements for charity each year.

Unlike his siblings, Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, and Princess Alexandra, he does not receive an allowance or parliamentary annuity for his work representing the Crown.

Instead, Prince Michael has forged his own career and, according to various reports, has a net worth estimated to be £30million.

King Charles’s cousin, who was a page boy at the Queen and Prince Philip’s wedding, went to Sandhurst after studying at Eton College, where both Prince William and Prince Harry went to school.

After two decades in the military, where he served in Germany, Hong Kong and Cypress before retiring with a Major rank in 1981, he became a business consultant.

According to the Times report, Prince Michael has a one percent stake in the British company RemitRadar — which is described on Linkedin as a transfer marketplace — along with Russian business partners.

The company received a “significant investment” of £100,000 in 2018 from previously mentioned Maxim Viktorov, who has been linked to the oligarch Boris Rotenberg.

He and his wife, Princess Michael of Kent, Baroness Marie-Christine von Reibnitz, had a business called Cantium Services which they founded in 1978, the year they were married.

The pair have been known to be frank about how they seize every opportunity to make money with Princess Michael famously declaring that she would “go anywhere for a hot meal”, and attended the opening of a Happy Eater on the A3 near Guildford.

In 2012, it emerged that Prince Michael had received more than £320,000 from oligarch Boris Berezovsky over six years to help with their business’s staff costs. There is no suggestion of wrongdoing.

The couple shut down their company, which operated in the property education and new technologies sector, in March of last year.

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Prince Micheal, who speaks fluent Russian, has long been interested in Russia and is related through his grandmother to the last emperor of Russia, Tsar Nicholas II.

Last year, the royal also stepped down as patron of the Russo-British Chamber of Commerce and returned the Russian honour, the Order of Friendship. He received the honour, which is one of the highest orders in Russia, from former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in 2009.

In 2021, he told undercover reporters posing as gold investors that he could be hired for £10,000 a day to make “confidential” representations to President Vladimir Putin.

The Times reported that the royal said he was prepared to endorse the reporters’ fictional company by recording a speech for some £150,000 using his Kensington Palace apartment as a backdrop.

His spokesperson subsequently issued a statement after reports about “selling access” emerged which said the royal had “no special relationship” with Putin, having had “no contact” with him since 2003.

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Princess Michael, who has two children with the royal, has had success in the creative industry and earned a great fortune over the years, too.

She has written several novels about European royalty, established her own interior design company and spent 13 years on the board of the Victoria & Albert Museum before becoming the President of Partridge Fine Art.

The Princess alone has reportedly accrued a wealth of more than £6.5million over the years.

When Michael, who was eighth in line to the throne upon his birth, married Princess Michael in 1977, he forfeited his place in the line of succession as he was marrying a Catholic.

This all changed when the Succession to the Crown Act came into force in 2013, although he is now 52nd in line to the throne.

Both he and Princess Michael came under fire in 2002 when it emerged they had paid £69 a week rent on the five-bedroom, five-reception room royal apartment in Kensington Palace they were given as a wedding present by the Queen.

Her Majesty later made a statement that she would foot the £120,000 yearly bill from her own private income. It was agreed that they would then pay their own rent from 2010 onwards.

Prince Michael is “involved in around 100 charities and organisations, including being patron for a large number of these” according to the Royal Family website.

It reads: “The charities vary from reflecting his interest in transport, for example being patron of the Brooklands Museum Trust, to his passion for Russia, including his own charity, The Prince Michael of Kent Foundation, which works to benefit heritage, culture, health and post-graduate business education in Russia.”

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