We investigated a secret Russian lobbying operation successfully interfering with European policies on occupied Ukraine.
European Union politicians were offered cash and perks to whitewash Russian occupation of Crimea.
#KremlinConnection🧵
occrp.org/en/investigati…
Leaked emails belong to Sargis Mirzakhanian, a former advisor in the State Duma of Russia.
Ukrainians hacked him and proved how he was secretly curating Russian influence over Ukraine during and after the events of 2014.
Now we see, how he used that expertise approaching EU.
Internal documents claim his "lobbying" organization was “cooperation with leading EU parliamentary parties and individual politicians.
They claimed to have implemented “24 international projects” by the end of 2016.
Some of these they have listed (machine translated) here.
They helped organize yearly Yalta International Economic Forums in the occupied territory of Crimea to whitewash the illegal annexation on an international scale.
A suspected polish spy Mateusz Piskorski aided our organization and handled the 2016 European political delegation.
It is already public that European politicians had their travel and accommodations covered by Russia.
It’s even more revealing to find a document listing additional payments (гонорар) amounting to 21.5k EUR in total for the European political delegation at the event.
Three days after the forum, Piskorski sent Mirzakhanian an early resolution draft from a region of Veneto in Italy.
The resolution recognises Crimea as part of Russia and demands that the Italian government would end the sanction regime against Russia.
The council adopts it.
Through the Italian far right party, Northern League, a similar resolution reaches to other numerous regions of Italy.
In june, Paolo Tosato, an Italian senator also from the Northern League presented a motion in the state parliament, almost identical to the Veneto resolution.
Earlier, Mirzakhanyan had sent his colleague a budget document. Calls it “price tag of the vote”
It lists tens of thousands of euros as payments for a resolution that Tosato would indeed later present in the Italian senate.
A similar document had been drafted for Austria.
In July 2016, Johannes Hübner from Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) also presents a resolution indicated in the plans.
In 2017 Hübner will participate in the Yalta forum in Crimea, organized by our “secret organization”
At the same time, Mirzakhanian and co approach Progressive Party of Working People (AKEL) in Cyprus and it’s (then) leader Andros Kypraniou.
Almost three months later another “action plan” had been drafted, Cyprus parliament adopts the resolution through majority vote.
Much has been said about Germany’s AfD’s Russian connections so I won't go into much detail.
For example, current member of German Bundestag, Markus Frohnmaier literally asks for “material” support from our organization for his 2017 parliamentary election campaign.
In October 2016, Kyprianou and Valdegamberi, each meet with organizers of the Yalta forum to speak about “business opportunities” in Crimea and Russia.
During his visit, Valdegamberi is gifted an apartment in a Crimean real estate development!
Yalta forums continue in 2017, 2018 and 2019 while more EU politicians attend.
Ukrainian embassies remind them time and time again that these visits to occupied territories via Russia are seen as illegal by Ukrainian law.
Now we probably know, why they didn't listen...
Sanctions demand unity from the EU and we saw a rise of Russian-friendly far-right (and left) parties coming into power at that exact period.
I find that this influence operation manages to provide context, how Ukraine was failed and why EU politics didn't deter Russia enough.
Here's our story focusing on Cyprus!occrp.org/en/investigati…
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