Russia wields several tools in its hybrid war in Europe: espionage, disinformation and propaganda campaigns, and influence operations to interfere and destabilize. Just over two months before crucial European Parliament elections, the European Union warns in several internal reports to which EL PAÍS has had access that the Kremlin is redoubling the pressure of its interference. Now, a latest coordinated operation by several European secret services against a Kremlin influence network has raised alarm bells. It is being investigated whether MEPs from far-right parties received payments for their “collaborations” with an article platform for “promoting” Russian propaganda. Researchers believe that politicians from the Czech Republic, Germany, France, Poland, the Netherlands or Hungary may be involved, but they do not rule out that the network may have acted with legislators from other Member States.
“The use of coordinated networks and influential people is being amplified to artificially spread and amplify misleading narratives related to the EU, support for Ukraine and other elements on networks,” says one of the internal documents that this newspaper has been able to consult. . At the same time, Russia is trying to rebuild its espionage network in NATO allied countries, which suffered a severe blow with the expulsions ordered throughout the EU after the invasion of Ukraine, community sources warn. The use of media, networks and agents of influence is, in fact, at the heart of the latest European investigation that has shaken the European Parliament during the Easter break.
Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala announced on Thursday the dismantling of a Russian influence operation that operated through an articles platform called Voice of Europe, based in Prague, a place traditionally used by Russia as one of its focuses to expand espionage by the European Union. The website, now deleted, disseminated interviews, analyzes and news-like articles with a clear far-right bias and full of misinformation and populist elements, according to its digital trace. Prague believes that Kremlin networks used that platform as a vehicle to pay thousands of euros to European politicians, in cash or cryptocurrencies, according to an intelligence source.
Czech researchers claim that after Voice of Europe There are two oligarchs linked to the Kremlin, Viktor Medvedchuk, of Ukrainian origin, involved in other disinformation campaigns in the country invaded by Russia two years ago and considered a man close to President Vladimir Putin – the Russian leader is even godfather to his daughter; and Artem Martzhevsky, according to the Czech newspaper Denik N. Prague included both already on Thursday Voice of Europe on its sanctions list for attacking national sovereignty.
The Belgian Prime Minister, Alexander de Croo, has also raised awareness of the case. “Russia approached MEPs, but also paid them, to promote Russian propaganda,” he denounced in the Belgian Parliament on Thursday. Neither De Croo nor the Czech secret services, which have led the investigation, have revealed the names of the MEPs under investigation. . Voice of Europe has organized debates and conferences, and published interviews and articles of deputies, MEPs or aspiring European legislators in the upcoming elections of the ultra parties Alternative for Germany (AfD), National Rally – the formation of the French Marine Le Pen -, Fidesz of the Hungarian Viktor Orbán or the Italian League, among others.
The European Parliament is in contact with the national authorities investigating the matter and with the rest of the community institutions, explains its spokesperson, Jaume Duch. “We have been observing anti-European Union campaigns from Russia for quite some time,” says Duch. “It is not unknown that a part of the far-right (and far-left) represented in the European Parliament have contacts with Russia and tend to defend their positions,” he points out. Polls on the upcoming elections show that far-right parties will increase their power in the next legislature.
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The contacts of the Kremlin, its satellites or affiliates – from oligarchs to media personalities – with far-right parties have been documented on several occasions. For some years now, Russia has been trying to become one of the bastions of what is considered the traditional family formed by a man and a woman, and also one of the largest disseminators of rhetoric against sexual and reproductive rights; elements that he uses to influence and forge harmony with other European ultra-conservative leaders. And not only that, through some of his associates, such as the oligarch Konstantín Maloféyev, he has financed or supported organizations contrary to these rights around the world, also in Europe, says by phone the writer and activist Klementyna Suchanow, who has investigated these networks infiltrated by Russia in depth in analyses, books and articles, the last one dedicated to Agencia Europa, an influence group with linked entities in 15 countries.
Undermining the credibility of the EU
A few weeks ago, the European Parliament opened an investigation into the Latvian MEP Tatiana Ždanoka, under investigation in her country, named in several articles for her contacts with the Russian secret services and suspected of being an agent of influence for Moscow. In addition, the plenary session of the institution demanded a thorough investigation into Russian interference. The new scandal comes almost a year and a half after the Qatargate, the scheme of bribery of MEPs and other parliamentary workers allegedly by Qatar and Morocco. And again it could be a blow to the credibility of the institution 11 weeks before elections that will be key to building the future of Europe, of several of its large member states and for the Union's support for Ukraine in its war against Russia.
These operations, explains a European intelligence source, can work in a double way for the Russian narrative: they are useful while they remain in the dark, but also when they are discovered, since then the Kremlin can also use them to further spread the message. that democracy does not work and institutions are corrupt. “Russia fishes in a river where there are already divisive, controversial and disturbing issues, and exploits them. It does not invent anything new, it uses a breeding ground that already exists,” concludes the source, who has been studying the tools of Russian interference for years.
Furthermore, as can be seen from the study of hundreds of intelligence reports carried out by Professor Geir Hagen of the Norwegian Defense University, there are other keys to this hybrid war. Tools to which the Kremlin gives more importance in the current scenario of isolation of the West due to the war in Ukraine and in which it has fewer and fewer traditional pressure levers – for years it used cheap Russian gas, for example -: media , social networks, management of territorial conflicts, information services, cyber operations and attacks, business or corruption. Internal EU reports also warn that Russia is increasing the use of artificial intelligence to produce and expand this propaganda and disinformation material.
Disinformation and influence with “political disseminators”
Now, with its main media propaganda organs blocked in Europe by sanctions due to the war against Ukraine or identified, the Kremlin is using others in the form of white labels, according to a European report. Some are news blogs or websites that take the form of a local news platform, but the dynamic is the same. In February alone, Viginum, the French organization that analyzes foreign digital interference, identified 193 websites that had the objective of disseminating information from sources related to Russia and from Russian media and institutions.
Furthermore, the intelligence officer points out, the Kremlin or its affiliates are reactivating their agents of influence, who are not only professional politicians at different levels, but sometimes take the form of “political disseminators” or relevant opinion makers, and who therefore They generally try to sell themselves as the critical voice of real problems in the face of the EU bureaucracy and the big media. Agents of influence who not only disseminate the narrative related to Russia, but also sometimes speeches that fuel conspiracy theories.
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