In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce confirmed cases where the Kremlin has funded or otherwise influenced European politicians & parties in order to gain their support with issues like conducting business with Russian businesses, aid to Ukraine & sanctions against Russia.

On 28 March 2024, the Czech Republic & Poland exposed a Kremlin-backed propaganda network that paid European politicians & spread anti-Ukraine narratives on media. According to the investigators, the Voice of Europe website was used as a vehicle to pay politicians.

But first of all, let’s look at how to motivate people to work on behalf of a foreign agent. I have previously written about the acronym MICE, which translates to Money, Ideology, Compromise and Ego. More on this here:

MICE

There are many journalists, political parties and individual politicians who have provenly received funding from the Kremlin or from the CCP. One of the most famous examples is the Latvian MEP, Tatjana Zdanoka exposed by the @InsiderEng:

Tatjana Ždanoka

In Belgium, two politicians from the far-right party Vlaams Belang, Filip Dewinter and Frank Creyelman, have received payments from Chinese spies.

Vlaams Belang is currently polling around 28% for the upcoming elections:

Filip Dewinter

In Germany, another far-right party, AfD, has extremely close relations with the Kremlin, and many of their politicians have received gifts and free luxury trips to Russia. They have also received funding and instructions from their masters:

Alternative für Deutschland (AfD)

A former German journalist, Hubert Seipel also received funding through shell companies for providing positive coverage of Vladimir Putin. Most of the “macho imagery” of him comes from Seipel’s work.

More on Hubert:

Hubert Seipel

Austria is a hotbed for Russian espionage. Recently, @InsiderEng revealed that the Wirecard conman Jan Marsalek has been working for GRU for a decade,
and for example gave confidential documents to Austrian far-right party FPÖ:

Jan Marsalek

In Italy, an aide to Italy’s then deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini held secret talks with Russian officials to pump Russian oil money to Italian far-right party Lega Nord:

Matteo Salvini

In France, former MEP, Jean-Luc Schaffhauser, organized loans from Russia to Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party. Schaffhauser and other pro-Kremlin politicians are currently being investigated by the French Intelligence.

Marine Le Pen

In the Netherlands, there have been speculations on FvD leader Thierry Baudet being paid by the Kremlin. His party member and MEP, Marcel de Graaff is also being investigated for his Russian connections:

Marcel de Graaff

In Bulgaria, the Russian state paid politicians, famous journalists, analysts and political scientists 2000 EUR monthly for their pro-Kremlin takes on both traditional and social media.

And of course this is just the tip of the iceberg. Most of these covert operations will never be exposed, and there are probably hundreds of politicians and policymakers who receive cash and crypto payments from Russia, Iran and the CCP.

Naturally, there are also politicians and propagandists who were funded more or less openly by RT, Sputnik and other Kremlin mouthpieces. Some of these include Nigel Farage and George “The Cat” Galloway.

Nigel Farage

George Galloway

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Pekka Kallioniemi (@vatniksou…

Vatnik Soup