Russia has paid European Union politicians “to promote Russian propaganda,” a senior Belgian official said amid a multinational espionage crackdown unfolding across Europe.
“It came for example to light that Russia has approached MEPs, but also paid [them], to promote Russian propaganda here,” Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said Thursday, according to Politico’s European affiliate.
The remark offers a glimpse into a widening counterintelligence initiative launched by the Czech Republic on Wednesday. Czech officials announced that a website called Voice of Europe was “managed and financed directly by the Russian Federation,” which used the site as a cutout in a scheme to undercut Western support for Ukraine, including through payments to European politicians.
“We have reached one of the important places from which the Russian Federation spread its propaganda,” Czech counterintelligence chief Michal Koudelka said Wednesday, according to an unofficial translation. “Crucially, however, we have mapped and described the cash flows exactly and presented clear evidence that shows how Russian propaganda works and works in Europe.”
Their findings galvanized related raids by Polish authorities. “The Internal Security Agency is conducting activities as part of an investigation into espionage activities for Russia directed against European Union countries and institutions,” spokesman Jacek Dobrzynski said Thursday. ”The operations carried out are the result of the agency’s international cooperation with a number of European services, coordinated in particular with Czech partners.”
The Polish sweep built on a previous effort that led to charges against a Polish man “embedded in Polish and EU parliament circles, [who] carried out tasks commissioned and financed by colleagues from Russian intelligence,” he added.
The operation involves one of the most prominent pro-Russian Ukrainian politicians, Viktor Medvedchuk, who was charged with treason in 2021 and then released to Russia as part of a prisoner exchange in September 2022. Ukrainian authorities suspended three television stations in 2021 and banned his political party a few months after the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
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Medvedchuk, famous for naming Russian President Vladimir Putin as the godfather of his daughter in 2004, “acted through the company Voice of Europe” and another associate, according to Czech authorities, who imposed national-level sanctions on both men.
“This decision is in the security interest of the Czech Republic, as well as contributing to the protection of the democratic processes in relation to the forthcoming elections to the European Parliament,” the Czech Foreign Ministry said Thursday.
