The Conservative Friends of Russia re-branded into the Westminster Russian Forum in 2012 after allegations of homophobic smear campaigns, string pulling from the Russian embassy and Moscow gold. When exposed by the press, the Embassy accused the British press of playing ‘a critical part in engineering the unnecessary Crimean War’ in a long winded statement.

Fast forward 18 months and the new impartial forum for those interested in ‘Russian politics, business, history and culture’ were quick to tweet all about the Sochi Winter Olympics, and announce their new committee line up. Yet they’ve gone very quiet in the last week. And their website is down. How odd…