Jack Straw received about £21,000 plus expenses for attending three events, and David Miliband received £12,000

Senior British politicians have been paid tens of thousands of pounds by a think tank closely linked to the Kremlin.

The Paris-based Center of Political and Foreign Affairs (CPFA) is caught up in the Trump-Russia investigation after paying a reported $50,000 (£38,000) to Donald Trump Jr for a meeting a month before the American presidential election last year.

However, the centre has also paid more than £52,000 in fees and expenses to at least four leading British politicians — the former foreign secretaries Jack Straw and David Miliband, and the former chancellors Lord Darling and Lord Lamont.

Lord Ashdown, the former Liberal Democrat leader, said the CPFA had offered him £12,000 in August last year. He refused and alerted the Foreign Office after becoming “deeply