Kremlin buys European rightist groups?


Austrian rightist groups deny their being financed by Russia, a French far-right party has admitted taking a €9 million loan from a Kremlin-linked bank, the German eurosceptic AfD party is under a cloud.

“We are convinced of our neutrality and we do not get financial donations or credits” the FPO leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, said  in a statement published on Tuesday after Austria’s left-wing SPO party raised questions in Austrian media about FPO’s independence.

The SPO spoke out when Strache posted pictures on Facebook of himself and other FPO top men at a high-level conference in Moscow, in which Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov took place.

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Blasting eurointegration and backing Putin

According to German newspaper Bild, these days Russia is looking at rightists parties in EU member states more closely: it is set to expand its influence in Western Europe with their help.

For example, a Kremlin-linked bank has recently granted a loan to the French party Front National. The emerging pro-Russia network also includes Hungary’s far-right Jobbik party, one of whose members, MEP Bela Kovacs, is being investigated for receiving money from Russian intelligence services, Euobserver reports. Tatjana Zdanoka, an MEP from Latvia’s pro-Russian Latvijas Krievu savieniba party, is facing a similar probe.

Apart from criticising EU integration and defending Russia’s war on Ukraine, the parties mentioned above  regularly vote against Russia-critical resolutions in the European Parliament. Bulgarian party Ataka, the FPO, the Front National, Jobbik, and Latvijas Krievu savieniba also sent observers to separatist “referendums” and “elections” in March and November in Ukraine’s Russia-occupied Crimea and Donetsk regions.

www.belsat.eu/en, following EUobserver

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