The Belgian Prime Minister, Alexander de Crooyesterday revealed that some MEPs were paid by the propaganda machine from Russia, after the Czech Republic’s intelligence services uncovered a large influence operation in several European Union countries.
“It has emerged that Russia approached MEPs, but also paid them, to promote Russian propaganda here,” De Croo said in a debate in Parliament on foreign interference. The Czech Prime Minister, Pietr Fiala, announced the discovery of a network to “spread Russian influence and undermine security across Europe.” The tool is a site called “Voice of Europe” financed and managed by the politician of Ukrainian origin Viktor Medvedchuk (close to Vladimir Putin and the subject of an exchange with Ukrainian prisoners of war in 2022) and by the propagandist Artem Marchevskyi. The services in Poland are also investigating for “espionage activities conducted in the name of Russia against EU states and institutions”. Voice of Europe, which has the appearance of a journalistic site, is no longer online.
But the YouTube channel contains interviews with numerous far-right or pro-Russian politicians. The MEPs “guests” of Voice of Europe include the French Patricia Chagnon (Rassemblement National), the Danish Anders Vistisen (Danish People’s Party), the Belgian Tom Vandendriessche (Vlaams Belang), the Germans Joachim Kuhs and Maximilian Krah (Alternative for Germany), the Spaniard Jorge Buxadé (Vox), the Croatian Ladislav Ilčić (Hrvatski suverenisti), the Estonian Jaak Madison (Ekkre), the Slovak Miroslav Radačovsky (Party of Slovak Patriots), the Dutch Marcel de Graaff (Forum for democracy). They are members of the Id groups (of which the League is part) and Ecr (of which Fratelli d’Italia is part). Among those interviewed there are also the Italians Matteo Gazzini (Forza Italia) and Francesca Donato (Christian Democracy New Sicily).
