Poland’s Internal Security Agency (ABW) launched searches as part of a joint investigation with other European security services into alleged Russian espionage, the agency announced, as reported by Euractiv.
Poland, which serves as a gateway for Western military supplies to Ukraine as the country resists Russia’s military invasion, claims to have become a significant target of Russian spy agencies. It accuses Moscow and its ally Belarus of attempting to undermine it, Euractiv reported.
Russian media network in Europe
“Actions aimed at organizing pro-Russian initiatives and media campaigns in EU countries have been documented,” ABW stated, citing the website voice-of-europe.eu, which allegedly published content that fits the Russian propaganda machine.
The website voiceofeurope.com spread calls from pro-Kremlin European politicians to stop supporting Ukraine. According to Jan Kovář, director of the Prague Institute of International Relations, several seminars and conferences were hosted under the auspices of this “outlet,” where participants promoted pro-Russian narratives
Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala posted on social media X that they had uncovered a pro-Russian network that was developing an operation to spread Russian influence and undermine security across Europe.
Russian agents of influence in the EU
The ABW’s most recent measures arose from an investigation completed in January, during which a Polish citizen suspected of spying for Russian special forces was indicted.
The Czech Republic introduced sanctions against Viktor Medvedchuk, a pro-Russian Ukrainian politician and close Putin’s ally, who was accused of treason in Ukraine but later was handed over to Moscow in a PoWs exchange, and the news website voiceofeurope.com for leading a pro-Russian influence operation in Europe.
The Czech authorities are convinced that the former leader of the pro-Russian Ukrainian party “Opposition Platform for Life” and Vladimir Putin’s ally, Viktor Medvedchuk, was at the center of this network.
Fiala also stated that the Czech Republic was just starting with Russia’s spy network busting operation, which included revelations in Poland, and that other nations would follow.
“Russia’s illegal influence over the European Parliament”
The exposure of the Moscow-funded Voice of Europe website demonstrates Russia’s “illegal influence” over the European Parliament, according to the German government in response to Prague’s revelations and media reports.
“The network used politicians from several European countries to allocate significant funds at their disposal,” a spokesperson for the German Federal Ministry of the Interior noted in a statement.
Russia continues to build and grow its political and media influence network and create favorable conditions to promote its agenda throughout the EU, particularly in light of the upcoming European elections.
Experts and EU nations need to monitor the activities of pro-Kremlin news websites, and readers should question such content because efforts that favor Russia in the media in times of geopolitical confrontation play into the hands of the Putin regime and are detrimental to Europeans.
After all, Russia has shown that it is waging not only a war on the battlefield to destroy Ukraine but also an information war to break up a united Europe.
In our recent analysis, we identified pro-Russian news website networks throughout Europe. Discover these networks in this article:
Pro-Russian websites network in Europe that serves Russia’s information warfare
