It is terrible what is happening in Ukraine, said Thierry Baudet last week in the House of Representatives debate about the Russian invasion. But to condemn the war? As the only party in the House of Representatives, Baudets Forum for Democracy did not want to do that. “The West has caused this and that Russia is now responding is all too predictable,” Baudet said in a video on the morning of the raid.
“Kremlin propaganda”, said Member of Parliament Sjoerd Sjoerdsma (D66) during the debate. More parties fear that Baudet is supported by the Kremlin. The entire House of Representatives supported a motion to have possible financial support from Russia to Dutch political parties investigated by the Court of Audit – FVD also voted in favour. His party had nothing to hide, Baudet said.
The question is whether the Kremlin needs money to find an ally in Baudet – as yet there is no hard evidence of payments. Baudet, and with him many other radical right-wing politicians in Europe, see in Putin’s Russia an ideological and geopolitical relative in the struggle for Europe. Putin is increasingly showing himself as the leader of conservative Europe. tweeted Baudet when Russian troops were already lining the border. “Beautiful guy.”
Also read: What makes Putin’s war so dangerous
Putin and far-right parties share a “superficial belief in Europe’s decline and a belief in traditional values,” says Alina Polyakova† The director of think tank The Center for European Policy Analysis did a lot of research into the link between the radical right and Putin.
According to that belief, Europe has become detached from its Christian roots. European countries, Putin once said, “reject their roots, including the Christian values that are the foundation of Western civilization.” Baudet shares that analysis. “Our historical convictions and roots are being dismantled, national history is being blackened and our cities are becoming unrecognizable,” he told NRC†
Oikophobic liberalism
The blame for this uprooting is placed on “oikophobic” liberalism. Liberalism is ‘obsolete’ Putin three years ago against the Financial Times: the new order would be illiberal. Liberalism, he said, had come into conflict with the interests of European citizens, and those citizens revolted.
In that fight, liberal Europe faces Putin’s Russia: Christian, anti-liberal, ultra-nationalist. That state is rooted, advocates claim, in that tradition and in its history: from that (imperial) realization follows the war in Ukraine, an area that would belong within the traditional Russian empire. Traditional Europe can only be regained by getting rid of the supranational politics of liberal politicians.
In that struggle, the radical right and Putin see each other as allies, says Greek political scientist Antonis Klapsis, who researched the ties between the two. “Anti-liberal Russia is a geopolitical alternative to liberal Europe.” Putin, the idea is, only stands up for his own national interest.
Subversion tactics
At the same time, pro-Russian parties are a geopolitical force for Putin. Supporting far-right, anti-European parties is a subversive tactic he uses in Europe, says Alina Polyakova. He creates “Trojan Horses”. They don’t even have to have government power: to disturb the peace by “selling the Russian narrative” is enough, she says.
Baudet previously denied that Russian dissident Aleksandr Navalny had been poisoned by the Russian secret service. Navalny was according to FVD a Western agent whose sole aim was to disrupt Russia through “chaos and revolution”. In doing so, the party took over the Russian narrative. The same happened last week in the debate in the House of Representatives. Ukraine, Baudet said, is “not a nation state”, but rather a “conglomerate of at least two different peoples, one Russian and one anti-Russian”. In doing so, he invokes the same historical fiction that Putin uses to legitimize his war. Such historical revisionism denies not only the existence of the Ukrainian sovereign state, but also that of the Ukrainian nation that has developed over the past centuries, with its own people, language and culture.
Baudet is virtually alone in Europe with this rhetoric: many other parties and politicians turned against the invasion. Polyakova hopes that break will last. „This must be a wake up moment are: Russia does not stand for traditional values. The country is developing into a totalitarian state.”
Also read: West considers further Russia sanctions over Ukraine
Klapsis: „The distance that parties now take is mainly determined by electoral considerations. Le Pen would lose votes if she went into the French presidential election as the candidate befriended by a leader waging war further down Europe.” Last week, Le Pen had 1.2 campaign pamphlets removed, containing a photo of her shaking Putin’s hand.
Electoral considerations seem to play less of a role at Baudet, three weeks before the municipal elections in which FVD participates in fifty municipalities. Its supporters are smaller than when FVD became the largest party in the Provincial Council elections in 2019. But those who stayed have experienced the FVD’s ideology and the radical anti-corona positions with which the party has isolated itself over the past two years. That isolation has been reinforced by the war.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of March 8, 2022
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