Russian Lobbyists Helped Arrange Junkets and Pay Far-Right EU Politicians for Pro-Russian Resolutions, Hacked Emails Show

Accord­ing to a detailed report by the Orga­nized Crime and Cor­rup­tion Report­ing Project (OCCRP), a non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion that inves­ti­gates and expos­es orga­nized crime and cor­rup­tion around the world, hacked and leaked emails reveal exten­sive evi­dence that the Russ­ian lob­by­ists planned to pay far-right Euro­pean politi­cians thou­sands of euros to put for­ward pro-Russ­ian res­o­lu­tions in Euro­pean leg­is­la­tures. The emails also indi­cate that the lob­by­ing group helped arrange for polit­i­cal fig­ures from sev­er­al Euro­pean coun­tries to be flown on expen­sive jun­kets to pro-Rus­sia events in occu­pied Crimea and paid hon­o­raria for their pres­ence. Fur­ther­more, the group flew sev­er­al Euro­pean polit­i­cal fig­ures to Rus­sia as offi­cial elec­tion observers.

The emails belong to Russ­ian par­lia­men­tary staffer Sar­gis Mirza­khan­ian, the coor­di­na­tor of the “Inter­na­tion­al Agency for Cur­rent Pol­i­cy,” Mirza­khan­ian built a net­work of polit­i­cal ana­lysts, jour­nal­ists, activists, and aca­d­e­mics who helped him push the Krem­lin’s inter­ests abroad. The emails show his role in coor­di­nat­ing protests, plac­ing media arti­cles, and prepar­ing par­lia­men­tary res­o­lu­tions across Europe while orga­niz­ing “fake” elec­tion obser­va­tion mis­sions as he and his asso­ciates sought to legit­imize the annex­a­tion of Crimea and “advance Russ­ian domes­tic and for­eign pol­i­cy interests.”

The leaked emails reveal espe­cial­ly close ties between Mirza­kha­ni­an’s oper­a­tion and offi­cials in Italy and Cyprus. These ties paved the way for pro-Russ­ian motions to be passed in both coun­tries, with the Cypri­ot par­lia­ment and mul­ti­ple Ital­ian region­al coun­cils call­ing for an end to sanc­tions against Rus­sia over its inva­sion of Crimea.

The group also planned for Ital­ian Sen­a­tor Pao­lo Tosato and Aus­tri­an Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Johannes Hüb­n­er, both from far-right par­ties present res­o­lu­tions in their respec­tive leg­is­la­tures to lift sanc­tions against Rus­sia. The project out­lines did not spec­i­fy how this would be accom­plished, but a “bud­get” of 20,000 euros was allo­cat­ed for both res­o­lu­tions, with an addi­tion­al 15,000 euros for each in case of suc­cess­ful vot­ing. Whether these sums were intend­ed for the politi­cians or the entire project remains unclear. Ulti­mate­ly, the res­o­lu­tions were pre­sent­ed by Hüb­n­er and Tosato but were not adopt­ed by legislators.

While pre­vi­ous media reports have shown links between EU politi­cians and Krem­lin pro­pa­gan­dists, this is the first com­pre­hen­sive insight into how this cam­paign was run from Rus­sia. It’s unclear whether the Inter­na­tion­al Agency for Cur­rent Pol­i­cy is still at work today, although those linked to the net­work, like Valdegam­beri, con­tin­ue to make pro-Russ­ian statements.

Anton Shekhovtsov, chair of the pro-democ­ra­cy non-prof­it Cen­tre for Demo­c­ra­t­ic Integri­ty, said the leaked emails “rep­re­sent one of the most impor­tant sources of our knowl­edge of how par­tic­u­lar engines of the Russ­ian polit­i­cal war machine works.” Most sig­nif­i­cant­ly, Shekhovtsov said, they showed Mirza­kha­ni­an’s role in coor­di­nat­ing protests, plac­ing media arti­cles, and prepar­ing par­lia­men­tary res­o­lu­tions across Europe while orga­niz­ing “fake” elec­tion obser­va­tion mis­sions as he and his asso­ciates sought to legit­imize the annex­a­tion of Crimea and “advance Russ­ian domes­tic and for­eign pol­i­cy interests.”

As ear­ly as August 2021, the Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) was report­ing on far-right Euro­pean MEP’s were act­ing as agents of Russ­ian influence,

Ref­er­ences:

https://www.occrp.org/en/investigations/kremlin-linked-group-arranged-payments-to-european-politicians-to-support-russias-annexation-of-crimea

https://www.global-influence-ops.com/how-far-right-european-mps-act-as-russias-proxies-in-the-european-parliament/