EU far-right parties set to gather in St. Petersburg for Russian forum

[Hindustani78]

Anti-Nazi NGO condemns Russia for hosting EU far-right parties at pro-Putin forum - watch on - uatoday.tv

Director of anti-Nazi NGO says Russia's far-right forum is ‘an insult to memory of Red Army soldiers



Simon Wiesenthal Center has condemned Russia for bringing together controversial far-right politicians from across Europe on Sunday.

The center denounced Russia's efforts to establish ‘a pan-European movement to lobby for its interests with the participation of West European neo-Nazis and fascists'. The Simon Wiesenthal Center's director of Eastern European Affairs, Dr. Efraim Zuroff, was highly critical of the Russian Conservative Forum, where the lineup of participants included Hitler apologists and Holocaust deniers.

Zuroff said that ‘such behavior is the antithesis of the traditional Russian opposition to Nazism and fascism and is an insult to the memory of the Red Army soldiers who sacrificed their lives to defeat the Third Reich'.

Putin's many critics pointed to the irony of the Kremlin long denouncing the Ukrainian authorities as fascists yet appearing to grant permission for hundreds of European far-right politicians and sympathizers to descend upon St Petersburg. Critics of the forum also pointed to the fact that it was held less than two months before Russians mark the 70th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.

 

[Hindustani78]

Leaked messages allegedly show Kremlin paid for French conservative leader to endorse Crimea annexation - Business Insider
Apr. 6, 2015, 10:30 AM

The Russian hacking collective Anonymous International has leaked close to 40,000 text messages allegedly sent and received by a high-ranking Russian official that reference a potential financing deal between Russia and France's far-right National Front (FN) party in exchange for FN leader Marine Le Pen's public endorsement of Russia's annexation of Crimea in March 2014.

The online French investigative journal Mediapartpublished the hacked text messages, which allegedly belong to Timur Prokopenko, head of Russia's internal affairs department.

Last November, reports surfaced that the FN had secured a loan worth 9.46 million euros ($10.40 million) from Moscow's First Czech-Russian Bank (FCRB), adding to an earlier 2 million euro ($2.20 million) loan from Russia to FN-linked group Cotelec, which is run by Marine's father, FN founder Jean-Marie Le Pen. Cyprus-based Vernonsia Holdings Ltd, a company allegedly owned by a former member of the KGB, reportedly underwrote the loan to Cotelec.

Marine Le Pen has denied any link between the loans and the party's position on Crimea, arguing that her party turned to Russia after it was shunned by French banks. French and European banks are notoriously timid about lending the FN money, and the anti-immigration political group found itself on the verge of bankruptcy in 2010.