The EU states have sanctions against the pro-Russian platform Voice of Europe and three other Russian media decided. This means they will be blocked throughout the EU, as the states announced on Friday. It literally says: “The Council decided today to suspend the broadcasting activities in the European Union of four additional media outlets that spread and support Russian propaganda and the war of aggression against Ukraine: Voice of Europe, Ria Novosti, Izvestia and Rossiyskaya Gazeta.”
According to the EU countries, the media and their employees are still allowed to research and conduct interviews in the EU. On the portal Voice of Europe Among other things, interviews with the AfD politician Petr Bystron and his party colleague Maximilian Krah were published. The Czech newspaper Denik N reported at the beginning of April that money may have flowed in the Bystron case. The AfD member of the Bundestag has rejected this several times. Krah also denies receiving money from those around him Voice of Europe to have accepted. As a result of this and other reporting, the public prosecutor’s office in Munich initiated so-called preliminary investigations in the Bystron case to check whether there was initial suspicion of criminal conduct involving bribery of members of parliament.
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Among other things, several properties were searched on Thursday – This also included Bystron’s representative office in the German Bundestag. The German Parliament had previously lifted his immunity. According to dpa information, the investigations that have now been initiated concern the allegations in connection with Voice of Europe.
Since Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine began around two years ago, EU member states have already revoked the licenses of a number of media outlets. These include, for example sputnik, Russia Today and Rossiya. This is intended to prevent Russian war propaganda and disinformation from being spread in the EU. The Czech Republic already had the internet platform in March Voice of Europe placed on its national sanctions list following intelligence investigations.