The suspicious site disappeared from the internet after the news broke.
Yesterday, Thursday, the Czech authorities set the Voice of Europe –site (Voice of Europe) and its suspected behind-the-scenes influencers on its blacklist. European intelligence services say they have uncovered Russia’s attempt to influence EU politics.
The site was still visible during the day, but has since been removed.
– We managed to uncover an influencer network funded by Russia and operating in the Czech Republic, said the Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala in his press conference in the morning.
The purpose of the network is to influence European politics and create a pro-Russia atmosphere, says the Polish internal security office ABW. It has raided Warsaw and Tychy today.
A “harmless” looking EU website
On the surface, Voice of Europe looked like an unassuming EU-related site styled according to the EU’s stylebook. The website promised to represent the citizens, to be apolitical and to burst the “Brussels bubble”, says the German Spiegel magazine.
The Voice of Europe website has published news on fairly harmless topics, such as the EU’s labor shortage.
However, a closer look revealed strangeness and inaccuracies in the news, such as the use of the wrong gender pronoun, writes Der Spiegel.
Comedian Jan Böhmermann introduced as a female TV face and German Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser as a male “Antifa Interior Minister”.
In Der Spiegel, attention has been drawn to Cyrillic characters appearing in the site’s source code, which refer to Russian actors.
Far-right ideas on display
Der Spiegel highlights the bias of the news published by the site in particular. In them, polarizing topics are emphasized and extreme right-wing actors are constantly allowed to speak.
The Czech authorities suspect the site’s background network of more serious violations than influencing opinion. According to the authorities, Voice of Europe has also been used to give secret funds to European politicians.
According to information from Der Spiegel, the money would have been given directly to politicians in Prague or paid in cryptocurrency. In total, it is about hundreds of thousands of euros.
According to intelligence information, the money would have been directed to the politicians of six European countries. It is about German, French, Polish, Belgian, Dutch and Hungarian politicians.
The Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is mentioned by name, but not the people to whom the money was paid.
However, the top name of AfD’s European elections, for example, appears prominently on the website Maximilian Krah and the one in second place on the electoral list Petr Bystro. According to Der Spiegel, their exceptionally favorable attitude towards Russia has attracted attention even within the AfD.
Was Russia trying to spread propaganda?
If the accusations are true, it is a big political scandal, Der Spiegel estimates. Russia pays Europeans to spread pro-Russian propaganda. And all this during the European elections.
According to information from Der Spiegel, half a dozen European intelligence services participated in exposing the Russian influence operation.
According to the assessment of the intelligence services, a pro-Russian Ukrainian oligarch has been behind the Voice of Europe website Viktor Medvechukwho is the president Vladimir Putin close friend. The site’s business has been handled by the former manager of a pro-Russian TV channel in Ukraine Artyom Marchevsky.
Sources: Reuters, AFP