50 285
Alina Polyakova et al.,
The Kremlin’s Trojan Horses, Atlantic Council, at 4 (Nov. 2016). Alison Smale, ‘‘Austria’s Far Right Signs a Cooperation Pact with Putin’s Party Dec. 19,
2016. Marine Turchi, How a Russian Bank Gave France’s Far-Right Front National Party 9mln Euros
Mediapart, Nov. 24, 2014; Suzanne Daley &
Maia de la Baume, French Far Right Gets Helping Hand With Russian Loan
The New York Times, Dec. 1, 2014. Andrew Rettman, Illicit Russian Money Poses Threat to EU Democracy
EUobserver, Apr.
21, 2017. Congressional Research Service, Russian Influence on Politics and Elections in Europe June 27, 2017. Peter Pomerantsev &
Micahel Weiss,
The Menace of Unreality How the Kremlin Weaponizes Information, Culture and Money, Institute of Modern Russia, at 19 (Nov. 2014). Congressional Research Service, Russia Background and US. Policy, at 29 (Aug. 21, 2017). The [Kremlin’s] web of political networks is hidden
and nontransparent by design, making it purposefully difficult to expose. Traceable financial links would inevitably make
Moscow’s enterprise less effective when ostensibly independent political figures call for closer relations with Russia, the removal of sanctions, or criticize the EU and NATO, it legitimizes the Kremlin’s worldview. It is far less effective, from the Kremlin’s
point of view, to have such statements come from individuals or organizations known to be on the Kremlin’s payroll.
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THE KREMLIN
’
S CULTIVATION OF POLITICAL EXTREMES
The Kremlin has also adopted anew practice in cultivating relationships with some of the more mainstream far-right parties in Europe, by establishing cooperation agreements between the dominant United Russia party and parties in Austria (Freedom Party, Hungary (Jobbik), Italy (Northern League, France (National Front, and Germany (AfD). These cooperation agreements include plans for regular meetings and collaboration where suitable on economic, business and political projects.’’
286
Kremlin- linked banks, funds, and oligarchs even lent nearly $13 million into France’s far-right National Front party to finance its election campaign.
287
And the German newspaper Bild reported that the Russian government clandestinely funded the AfD ahead of
2017 parliamentary elections—perhaps without the AfD’s knowledge by using middlemen to sell it gold at below-market prices.
288
In
addition to monetary resources, the Kremlin has reportedly also offered organizational, political, and media expertise and assistance to far-right European parties.
289
Different Kremlin narratives attract different groups from left and right. Scholars Peter Pomerantsev and Michael Weiss describe how European right-nationalists are seduced by the [Kremlin’s] anti-EU message members of the far-left are brought in by tales of fighting US hegemony and US. religious conservatives are convinced by the Kremlin’s stance against homosexuality.’’
290
The Congressional Research Service reports that many of the far-right European parties linked to the Kremlin are ‘‘anti-establishment and anti-EU, and they often share some combination of extreme nationalism a commitment to law and order and traditional family values and anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic, or anti-Islamic senti- ments.’’
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Far-right gatherings are also sponsored by Kremlin- linked oligarchs like Vladimir Yakunin and Konstantin Malofeev who, according to the
EUobserver,
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51 Andrew Rettman, Illicit Russian Money Poses Threat to EU Democracy
EUobserver, Apr.
21, 2017. Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber, Russian, European Far-Right Parties Converge in St. Peters- burg
The Moscow Times, Mar. 22, 2015.
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