The right-wing indeed showed its claws in the European elections. Often, those claws were soaked in Russian money. It’s no secret that Russia carefully nurtures and supports anti-system, anti-European right-wing factions that weaken European unity.
Chaos in the West
At first glance, little has changed: centrist, pro-democratic factions such as the European People’s Party, Socialists and Democrats, and the Greens still govern Europe.
However, more happened within individual member states: in France, for example, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally won twice as many votes as the parliamentary faction supporting pro-European President Emmanuel Macron. This prompted Macron to dissolve the parliament and call for early elections. The outcome of these elections will reveal whether the French truly want the far-right to govern France (in such case, Macron, with a solid presidential position guaranteed by the French constitution and still three years in office ahead of him, would be able to seriously undermine Le Pen and ultimately weaken her ratings for a long time) or if they will shy away from this and not vote for the National Rally.
In Germany, on the other hand, the populist, pro-Russian, and revisionist Alternative for Germany (AfD) took second place, receiving two percentage points more votes than Olaf Scholz’s ruling Social Democrats. The German “elephant,” the CDU/CSU conservatives, won. However, the traditional power exchange system between the conservatives and the Social Democrats in Germany has just started to collapse. This happened despite the AfD not being in its best form, as many populist-leaning voters shifted to the left-wing project of Sahra Wagenknecht’s Alliance.
In any case, stock markets reacted with alarm to these European election results, weakening the common European currency amid gloomy media predictions of a “common march of European right-wing against the European Union.”
The whole right wing is not one right wing
However, it’s essential to remember that a unified right-wing march is far from reality. The European right wing is not monolithic. They share quite a lot, such as advocating for the greatest possible sovereignty of nation-states within or outside the EU, a return to conservatism domestically, and a Western-centric approach internationally. They also share a negative stance on migration and the European Green Deal. But there are significant differences as well.
Aside from fundamental differences between right-wing parties, that for instance, make the friendship between Serbian and Hungarian nationalists or Hungarian and Romanian nationalists possible only as long as a more significant force keeps them from conflict (currently, this is the Pax Americana and the world order guaranteed by the USA and NATO, contested by Russia and some BRICS countries), other significant factors also divide European right-wing parties. One of the major issues is their stance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Parties from German-speaking countries, like Germany’s AfD and Austria’s FPÖ (Freedom Party of Austria), support lifting sanctions against Russia, arguing that “aiding Ukraine prolongs human suffering”. They overlook that it is equivalent to taking the aggressor’s side and calling for the victim to surrender, allowing the aggressor to threaten another victim later. However, it is a tradition of the German national egoism to aim for a continental alliance with Russia against the “Anglo-French dictate.”
Other Central European parties, like Hungary’s Fidesz, led by Viktor Orban, the Czech Freedom and Direct Democracy of Tomio Okamura (a politician of partly Japanese descent), and the peculiar “right-wing-left-wing” SMER party ruling Slovakia under Robert Fico, also generally support Russia, although they occasionally show a minimum empathy towards Ukraine (or towards their interests within the EU) by maneuvering within Europe’s generally pro-Ukrainian policies. That would fulfill Austrian Chancellor Metternich’s dream of a pro-German Mitteleuropa, intended to be an economic and logistical hinterland for Germany. And considering the specifics of the Hungarian or Slovak economies, this model is surprisingly thriving in this region.
In contrast, right-wing parties in countries directly threatened by aggressive Russia are not as “anti-Atlantic.” In Poland, it is familiar: PiS is heavily involved in supporting Ukraine, while the Confederation party, despite having a pro-Russian faction and being decidedly anti-Ukrainian, does not openly support Kremlin policies. Finland’s Finns Party unequivocally supports Ukraine, as do Sweden’s Democrats. Italy’s populist right-wing, governing in Rome post-mussolinistic party of Giorgia Meloni, has been, as the press puts it, “civilized” by hard political reality and shifted from being a pro-Russian anti-system far-right politician, cooperating with Orban and Kaczynski, becoming a politician not only supporting Ukraine but also drifting towards political center.
Besides, in Hungary itself, a potential reshuffling might occur in a while: although Fidesz won the European elections again with 44% support, Viktor Orban finally has someone to lose to: after almost 15 years of practical lack of competition, Fidesz has been threatened by Peter Magyar and his TISZA movement. Magyar, a right-wing and somewhat populist but anti-oligarchic politician, opposes the corruption-riddled economic-political system that Orban created in Hungary. And Magyar, although he is not an enthusiast of Ukraine’s membership in the EU or NATO, holds Russia responsible for restoring peace in Ukraine by ceasing hostilities, not Ukraine by ceasing its defense, as Orban does.
Russia financed European politicians
Within the populist-right world, there is also a race to be the most radical. Consequently, Poland’s PiS and France’s National Rally refuse to cooperate with Germany’s AfD. Supposedly due to its radicalism, but it is probably unveiling of a systemic flaw, that will always hang over the projects of the right-wing universalism – Germany, as envisioned by AfD, assertive to the point of arrogance and independent of the Western community, poses a threat to both France and Poland. If Russia additionally meddles in this, a conflict is inevitable.
Russia does indeed meddle in European right-wing politics, especially in those factions that disrupt European unity. In March 2024, the Czech government revealed how Russia financed and assisted various players on the European political stage in other ways. For instance, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo accused Russia of paying some MEPs to spread pro-Kremlin propaganda, and Czech counterintelligence revealed that it uncovered a network of Russian agents pressuring politicians in Germany, France, Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Hungary.
The Czech investigators have also been drawn to the Voice of Europe portal, linked to former Ukrainian politician Viktor Medvedchuk, considered to be Putin’s man in Kyiv. The portal was created to spread Russian disinformation and has provided a platform for German AfD (supporting, e.g., the reopening of NordStream), French National Rally, and Belgian Flemish Interest.
In Voice of Europe, AfD politicians like anti-Ukrainian and pro-Russian Petr Bystron and Maximilian Krah were particularly active. They spread narratives about the losses Germany suffered due to anti-Russian sanctions and the NordStream destruction and suggested that money intended for aid to Ukraine could support European farmers protesting in recent months under anti-EU slogans.
The FPÖ, which won the European elections in Austria, is not only pro-Russian but also closely tied to Russians.
Russia has long supported the European far-right. According to the investigation of the Dossier Center, a group linked to Russian oligarch-dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who, after Navalny’s death, declared himself a “leader of Russian opposition, another oligarch closely collaborating with Vladimir Putin, Konstantin Malofeev, financed Italian populist and right-wing Matteo Salvini. Salvini, who, after Russia’s full-scale invasion, appeared in Przemyśl with pro-Ukrainian slogans to erase the stigma of this past cooperation.
Russia, Poland and Ordo Iuris
But Malofeev’s and his Tsargrad media group aspirations didn’t end with Salvini: press investigations revealed that his infiltration aimed at the entire Identity and Democracy group in the European Parliament, which includes Salvini’s Lega Nord (now supplanted by Giorgia Meloni’s pro-Ukrainian and pro-European right-wing in Italy), but also Germany above’s AfD, France’s National Rally, Austria’s FPÖ, Czech Freedom and Direct Democracy, Flemish Interest, Danish People’s Party, Estonian Conservative People’s Party, and Dutch Party for Freedom.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Suspicions of European politicians cooperating with Russia are widespread. In January, the press accused Latvian MEP Tatiana Ždanoka of collaborating with Russia’s FSB, and in France, an investigation is underway against right-wing MEP Jean-Luc Schaffhauser, who allegedly not only promoted Russian narratives but was also the proxy person through whom Russia granted multi-million euro loans to Marine Le Pen’s National Front (in 2023, the National Front demonstratively repaid its debts to the bank with the name very revealing in the context of Russian influence in Europe: First Czech Russian Bank).
Other actors on the European stage also receive Russian support; for example, ultra-conservative Catholic organizations like HazteOir are said to have Russian ties. Similar claims are made about Poland’s Ordo Iuris, promoting religious fundamentalism (https://oko.press/na-zywo/dzien-na-zywo-najwazniejsze-informacje/ordo-iuris-rosja) and decrying “Russian influence” narratives as a way to “destroy the right wing” (https://ordoiuris.pl/komentarze/jak-sie-szyje-ruskie-onuce-polityczne-narracje-majace-zniszczyc-prawice).
Russia’s primary target appears to be Germany – a country “too big” for Europe, repeatedly making its neighbors feel its economy and civilizational potential surpass European conditions, which is hard to shoehorn between other ordinary countries of our subcontinent. A country where much of the public opinion does not favor American policies and which bears within itself the cadaver of East Germany, a German country dependent on the Soviet Union, with societal structures and resentments akin to other Central European countries like Hungary and the Czech Republic, where pro-Russian impulses and resentments are strong. It is worth remembering that the Russian influence in the far-right is not a new subject. Russia has hosted Kremlin-inspired events like the International Russian Conservative Forum (March 2015) and the International Forum for Multipolarity (February 2024), attended by pro-Russian circles across Europe. The former included organizations linked to the European Alliance for Freedom, replaced by Europe of Nations and Freedom, and eventually by the new group—Identity and Democracy, as mentioned before, a critical target for Russian infiltration in the European Parliament. So, the sources of Russian influence are evident. Why, despite it being an open secret, Kremlin-linked organizations and parties still thrive in the EU remains an open question.
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