According to the Hungarian nationalist newspaper Magyar Jelen Last January there were long lines in front of the doors of ‘Honterus’, a renowned antiquarian book store and auction house in the center of Budapest.
The patience of those waiting was richly rewarded: Thierry Baudet took almost two hours to sign the Hungarian translation of his conspiracy book ‘The Corona Deception’ – the second edition already in Hungary. The photos show how Baudet shines under all the attention.
Baudet was not the only European politician who came to Budapest that day. Petr Bystron, number two on the list of the German radical right AfD for the European elections, was also at the book presentation in Honterus. In the evening, both Baudet and Bystron gave a speech at the party congress of the Hungarian radical right-wing party Mi Hazánk (‘My Fatherland’). “We have a common enemy,” said the AfD politician: “Those are the globalists!”
Petr Bystron and Thierry Baudet not only have a common enemy – they also have a common friend: Vladimir Putin’s Russia. In recent weeks, Bystron’s AfD has become the center of a major bribery scandal through which Moscow allegedly tried to influence the European elections. Via an obscure news site in Prague, Voice of Europehundreds of thousands of euros are said to have been paid to European politicians – including Petr Bystron and AfD party leader Maximilian Krah.
Good friend of Putin
Baudet denies being paid by Moscow at all costs. When he was called on by MP Jesse Klaver (GroenLinks-PvdA) during a debate in the House of Representatives at the end of March to be open about the finances of Forum for Democracy, he exploded. “If you ask it again, I will punch you in the mouth,” Baudet said to Klaver after the debate.
There is no hard evidence that Forum for Democracy is involved in the Russian bribery scandal. Belgian newspapers did write that at least one Dutch politician received Russian payments from Voice of Europe. A Belgian government source confirmed this NRC: “It concerns payments to politicians from several European countries, including Germany and the Netherlands.”
NRC investigated the network surrounding the Russian propaganda site. Thierry Baudet and Forum for Democracy, it turns out, are at the heart of a pro-Russian and radical right-wing network around Voice of Europe.
The news site was once set up in the Netherlands, but according to the Czech government it is now in the hands of the Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk – a good friend of Putin. The operations in Prague are said to have been run by Medvedchuk’s right-hand man, Ukrainian politician Artyom Marchevsky. At the end of March, the Czech government announced that both the news site and the two Ukrainians had been placed on a sanctions list. In Brussels, the seat of the European Parliament, the Belgian Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office has now started a criminal investigation.
Details about Russian influence
In recent weeks, more details about the Russian influence operation have emerged. German and Czech media wrote about an audio recording that allegedly showed Marchevsky handing over 20,000 euros to Petr Bystron – in cash. “Bystron rustles money into the recording and counts it,” it quotes Die Zeit an anonymous Czech parliamentarian who heard the recording. Czech parliamentarian Pavel Belobradek, who, as chairman of the oversight committee on the intelligence services, also heard the recording, does not want to confirm these details to NRC due to his duty of confidentiality, but says that “what the government has stated is correct.”
In the past two years, two Dutch politicians have given an interview to the site: FVD MEP Marcel de Graaff and his party leader, Thierry Baudet. De Graaff and Baudet have been preaching positions for years that seem to come straight from the Kremlin. For example, Baudet invariably places the blame for the war in Ukraine on Kyiv and the West, and the Forum leader always states that a victory over Russia is impossible – an argument that according to analysts is one of the most important ingredients of the Russian information war.
For the time being, there is no hard evidence that Baudet or De Graaff was financed by Moscow. They decline to comment. “I do not talk to fake news media,” De Graaff said by email via his spokesperson. The fact is, however, that Forum for Democracy and its party leader are at the center of a European network of ultra- and radical right-wing parties around Voice of Europe.
‘Exiled from Europe’
One of those parties is Mi Hazánk, which Baudet brought to Budapest last January. Mi Hazánk has uniformed units for ‘self-defense’, is in favor of reintroducing the death penalty, wants a referendum on EU withdrawal, claims (traditionally Hungarian) territory in Ukraine and advocates apartheid between Roma and other Hungarians in education. In the 2022 parliamentary elections, Mi Hazánk surprisingly won seven parliamentary seats, making it the third party in the country.
Party leader László Toroczkai was interviewed by Voice of Europe last January. In that conversation, Toroczkai pointed out the excellent ties with like-minded parties and looked ahead to the European elections: “If we can change the situation in the European Parliament, it will also influence the war in Ukraine. Europe simply cannot continue to donate to Ukraine until the end. That is impossible, because it will destroy Europe.”
According to the Czech newspaper Dennik N and the Polish daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza Toroczkai was also a guest at a Voice of Europe conference in Prague. One of the other organizers of the conference was Milutin Ilić, the assistant of a pro-Russian Czech parliamentarian. Ilić told Denník N that the meeting was partly paid for by Petr Bystron.
The Mi Hazánk party has uniformed units for ‘self-defense’ and wants separation of Roma and Hungarians in education
László Toroczkai is a good acquaintance of Thierry Baudet. For example, Toroczkai wrote the foreword to the Hungarian edition of ‘The Corona Deception’. The promotion of ‘The Corona Roulette’, as Baudet’s book is called in Hungarian, was provided by another member of his party, the right-wing publicist and publisher Árpád Szakács. During a demonstration by Mi Hazánk against NATO troops in Hungary in 2022, Szakács gave a speech in which – with a Russian flag on his jacket – he fulminated against the subordination of ethnic Russians. “The most important Christian culture in the world, the Russian one, is being banished from Europe,” Szakács said.
Forum has strengthened its ties with Mi Hazánk in recent years. Last spring, then MPs Simone Kerseboom and Freek Jansen visited the Hungarian parliament at the invitation of the party. “The foundation was laid for cooperation and friendship, which will be further developed in the (near) future,” according to a message on the FVD website.
Conversely, Mi Hazánk’s top staff could regularly be found in the Netherlands. For example, vice-chairman Dora Duro spoke in October during the FVD festival Forum Outside in Eefde, where she fulminated against the World Health Organization WHO and its chairman Adhanom Ghebreyesus: “an Ethiopian Marxist terrorist”.
‘Budapest Declaration’
In August of last year, the political leaders of six radical right parties met in the Hungarian parliament at the invitation of Mi Hazánk. Thierry Baudet, Freek Jansen and the director of FVD International, John Laughland, were present on behalf of the Forum. Laughland previously worked for a think tank in Paris that was funded with Russian money. During the meeting, the parties signed a so-called ‘Budapest Declaration’ which, among other things, advocates a Europe of “sovereign, independent nations”, against the EU and against migration.
The six parties that signed the Budapest Declaration have close ties to Moscow or are sympathetic to the Kremlin. Take, for example, the Bulgarian Vazrazjdane (‘Rebirth’), a radical right-wing party whose supporters are regularly associated with incidents of violence, homophobia and anti-Semitism. Vazrazjdane campaigned against Bulgaria’s entry into the eurozone and advocated neutrality in the war in Ukraine. Last February, three parliamentarians from Vazrazjdane visited Moscow at the invitation of Putin’s ruling party ‘United Russia’.
In Moscow, the Bulgarians also spoke with representatives of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Party leader Kostadin Kostadinov was interviewed by Voice of Europe in January. He spoke out against the European Union. “We have been following orders from Washington and Brussels for 35 years. It is time that we follow the orders of our own sovereign, the Bulgarian people,” Kostadinov said.
Supporters of Bulgarian Vazrazjdane have regularly been linked to incidents of violence, homophobia and anti-Semitism
Vazrajzdane maintains good ties with Forum. For example, Stanislav Stojanov, who sits in the Bulgarian parliament on behalf of Vazrazhdane, was a guest at the Forum event in Eefde last October. He was introduced by John Laughland, who said that FVD and Vazrazjdane were “destined” to be friends. During his speech, Stojanov then called Western arms supplies to Ukraine “absurd.”
On April 15 this year, Forum representatives were in the Bulgarian capital Sofia at the invitation of Vazrazjdane to sign a new declaration.
In addition to Vazrazhdane, pro-Russian parties from Greece, Moldova, Slovakia and Serbia had joined the initiative. Ralf Dekker, the new FVD party leader in the upcoming European elections, called Russia “the largest military power in the world” during his speech in Sofia.
Slovak MEP Milan Uhrik was also in Sofia. During a speech in the European Parliament, he claimed that Ukrainian ‘mercenaries’ were guilty of killing children in eastern Ukraine. In recent months, Uhrik, who was also interviewed by Voice of Europe, has also been advocating against arms supplies to Ukraine and in favor of peace negotiations.
‘An international alliance’
For example, the contours of a pro-Russian network are emerging around Voice of Europe, with parties that are often even more radical than established populist parties such as the PVV or Fidesz of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. “An international alliance,” said John Laughland last October in Eefde, which in his view should be called “substantial”. For the past two years, Laughland has been director of Forum International, an English-language website that pays a lot of attention to the party’s European partners and to Russian positions regarding the war in Ukraine.
It was FVD International that published Petr Bystron’s statement, in which the AfD politician denies having accepted Russian money. “Anyone who stands for peace and opposes the continuation of the war in Ukraine is being labeled a Russian agent,” Bystron wrote.
According to the German weekly Der Spiegel Bystron has now admitted to the federal leadership of his party that he had accepted “packages” from Marchevsky. The same magazine revealed last week that the Kremlin even drew up a strategy document for the AfD.
Voice of Europe is back on the air. The site is now hosted in Kazakhstan. Error messages on the news site are displayed in Russian. The allegations that Voice of Europe is financed and controlled from Moscow are nevertheless “absurd”, the site said in a statement.
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