The head of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen promised to fight back Vladimir Putin’s supporters who want to “steal” the future of Europe.
She announced this in Greece, where she began her campaign for elections to the European Parliament as a candidate for the center-right European People's Party (EPP).
European Parliament elections: von der Leyen's first promise
— Russia is not only trying to wipe Ukraine off the face of the earth, Russia’s aggression is much broader. It has been carrying out hybrid attacks against Europe for years. Either through cyber attacks, or through the manipulation of social media, or through the instrumentalization of migrants, — said von der Leyen.
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According to her, “friends of Putin” in Europe “trying “to rewrite our history and steal our future, either under the guise of populists, or under the guise of demagogues”.
— Or it is AfD in Germany, or Assemblement National in France, or Konfederacja in Poland, or others. The names may be different, but the goal is the same: they trample on our values and want to steal our future. In the coming days, weeks and months, our task — fight back — she emphasized.
European Parliament elections will take place on June 6-9, 2024.
On the eve of the June elections to the European Parliament, Czech counterintelligence, with the assistance of the SBU, exposed a pro-Russian network of influence on European deputies, behind which stood ex-People's Deputy Viktor Medvedchuk.
This network paid politicians to praise Russia and Putin in European media, and also published anti-Ukrainian and anti-European materials on its own website Voice of Europe in order to get as many pro-Russian politicians as possible into the European Parliament.
After this scandal, members of the European Parliament demanded a thorough investigation into Russian influence.
