Kremlin-Financed Political Influence Network in Europe Scandal Widens, 24 Officials Named

A scandal over Kremlin hybrid war operations supporting nationalist, Euro-skeptic platforms across the continent widened on Tuesday with pro-democracy agencies identifying two dozen European populist officials, and 14 European far-right political parties, by name, as direct beneficiaries of Moscow promotion.

The purported Russian agents, meanwhile, said it was an attack on free speech and democratic principles.

Ukrainian political scientist and radical right expert Anton Shekhovtsov, Director of the Centre for Democratic Integrity, in an April 1 post on X (formerly Twitter) identified 24 European politicians that “the Russians decided to promote through their resources” via the Kremlin-financed and Prague-headquartered Voice of Ukraine information agency.

European parties to whom those politicians belong, and identified by Shekhovtsov as benefiting from Russian Federation promotion via the Voice of Ukraine platform, included the Dutch Forum for Democracy (FvD ), Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD), Belgium’s Vlaams Belang (VB), Italy’s Christian Democracy (DC) and Forward Italy (FI), Croatia Party of Rights (HSP), Slovakia’s Social Democracy (SMER), the Czech Republic’s Trikolara, France’s National Rally (RN) and Spain’s VOX.

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All political parties named by Shekhovtsov support closer relations with Moscow at Ukraine’s expense if necessary, and nationalism and local values, ahead of European unification. Many of the politicians named by Shekhovtsov are outspoken in support to far-right platforms and immediate and substantial Ukrainian concessions to Russia.

The pro-democracy European information platform Insight News on Tuesday reported the politicians identified in Shekhovtsov’s list had all benefited directly from access to the Kremlin-financed Voice of Ukraine platform and singled four senior far-right politicians – in Germany, France, Slovakia and Serbia – as “politicians known for pushing pro-Kremlin agendas and making pro-Russian statements.”

Russian Federation agents had, aside from facilitating that messaging, attempted to bribe other European Parliament members to make pro-Kremlin propaganda statements on the Voice of Ukraine platform, and were now being investigated by Czech and Belgian law enforcement, the Insight report said.

A Voice of Ukraine Monday statement countered: “We are all unfairly and relentlessly smeared as Putinists by increasingly unpopular globalist ‘elites’; their discredited lackeys in the lying, mainstream press; and Soros-funded NGOs. We at Voice of Europe will not be intimidated by globalist thuggery or kneel to this witch-hunt which is reminiscent of the darkest days of McCarthyism.”

AfD member Petr Bystron, the second politician named by Shekhovtsov and Insight News as a witting or unwitting Kremlin operative, in an April 1 statement to the Forum for Democracy information platform said: “The closure of the Voice of Europe is a blatant attack on press freedom which I strongly condemn. The goal of this campaign of slander is to damage opposition politicians in several European countries and to silence critical journalists. Anyone who stands for peace and against the continuation of the war in Ukraine is defamed as a Russian agent… As in many previous election campaigns, those in power are trying to push back against the high opinion poll ratings of the opposition, using campaigns of slander carried out with the help of the secret services.”

On March 27 the Czech national internal security agency Bezpečnostní Informácien Služba (BIS) announced it had uncovered a Russian-organized network attempting to influence elections to the European Parliament in various European countries, using mostly far-right politicians and where possible promoting anti-Europe, pro-Moscow views in continental media.

Subsequent statements by senior Czech officials said that Voice of Europe operatives paid bribes to individual German, French, Polish, Belgian, Dutch and Hungarian politicians to influence upcoming EU parliamentary elections.

Neither Shekhovtsov nor Insight News stated any of the 24 officials benefiting from Voice of Ukraine promotion had received payments from Kremlin agents.  

Poland’s Internal Security Agency (ABW) on March 27, conducted searches targeting Russian “espionage activities” that had sought, via Voice of Europe, to undermine European Union member states and their institutions, Jacek Dobrzyński, spokesperson for the Minister’s Coordinator of Special Services, said according to a TVP World Report.

Dobrzyński said the Kremlin financed Voice of Europe to publish articles, statements, comments, and interviews with a biased, pro-Russian tone related to the current international situation, including Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Police in Poland’s central Mazovia district seized €48,500 ($52,155) in euros and $36,000 in US dollars, and electronic devices including mobile phones, he said. The raids followed from an investigation completed in January leading to charges against Polish citizen for engaging in espionage on behalf of Russia, the TVP report said.

According to the Ukrainian volunteer group InformNapalm, which put together an interactive map on Kremlin influence networks, Voice of Ukraine content produced in the Czech Republic is only a small piece of a massive Kremlin information manipulation and hybrid war operation aiming to undermine opposition to Russian state goals in European states, by flooding those states’ media with pro-Russia, anti-Western information reports.