exclusive
There is growing evidence that AfD member of the Bundestag Bystron received money as part of a Russian influence operation. The Czech secret service is said to have presented evidence to MPs in Prague for the first time.
Last Thursday, the Czech domestic intelligence service BIS played a total of four audio recordings to members of parliament in Prague that corroborated the suspicion that European politicians were being paid by a network close to the Kremlin. The Czech MPs belong to the parliamentary control body responsible for intelligence services.
The German Bundestag member Petr Bystron (AfD) can also be heard on two of the audio recordings. This is the result of joint research by the Czech daily newspaper “Deník N”. ARD-Politics magazine Contrasts and the weekly newspaper “Die Zeit”.
A conversation between Bystron and the Moscow-loyal Ukrainian businessman Artem Marchevsky was also recorded. It is said to have taken place in Prague. The BIS had apparently bugged Marchevskyj’s car and thus witnessed the meeting between the two, during which money of 20,000 euros was said to have been handed over to Bystron. At least that’s what the BIS and several MPs who heard the recording conclude.
“Bystron is shown rustling money and counting it,” says a Czech MP who is familiar with the recording. Other sources also confirm this. The new evidence incriminates Bystron, who denies the allegations.
In the conversation, Bystron and Martschewskyj are also expected to discuss how employees of newly elected members of the European Parliament could be financed in the future. It is still unclear whether the recording is from 2023 or this year.
At the beginning of April, “Deník N” and “Der Spiegel” initially reported on the existence of a sound recording incriminating Bystron, but in the meantime doubts were raised as to whether there were any recordings at all.
Czechs transmitted findings to the defense of Constitution
According to findings from Contrasts, “Die Zeit” and “Deník N”, the Czech domestic service sent an analysis and transcripts of the recordings to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV). When asked, he did not want to comment on this for fundamental reasons. “This does not make any statement as to whether the facts are correct or not,” said the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
The revelations are related to the actions of the Czech authorities against the website “Voice of Europe” (VoE). The Prague-based company is said to have not only spread propaganda in the interests of the Kremlin. The VoE network was also concerned with helping Russia-friendly candidates get into the European Parliament, as well as installing people from the network as employees of future MPs, warned Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala and his Belgian counterpart Alexander De Croo in a letter to EU institutions .
Artem Martschewskyj is said to have actually run the business of “Voice of Europe”. However, the authorities consider the Kremlin-loyal oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk, a close friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin, to be the financier and mastermind in the background. The government in Prague has now put “Voice of Europe” as well as Marchevskyj and Medvedchuk on the national sanctions list.
According to findings from Contrasts, “Zeit” and “Denik N”, the Czech news service also has recordings from the offices of “Voice of Europe”. Two of them are said to document how Marchevsky split large sums of cash with an employee. According to the sources, it remains unclear in the recording who exactly the money is intended for.
Bystron denies allegations
Bystron, who is running for second place on the AfD list in the European elections in June, denied the allegations in a written statement to the AfD federal executive committee at the beginning of April: “At no time have I received any money payments from a VoE employee (or any Russian). or get cryptocurrencies.” He later generally excluded payments from the “Voice of Europe” environment.
When asked again by “Zeit” and Contrasts Regarding the alleged details of the audio recording, Bystron again denied handing over money on the phone. He left written questions unanswered; instead, Bystron requested by email to be informed “who specifically (…) wants to have heard these alleged recordings”. There has already been enough reporting about him based on false allegations.
Close contacts with VoE financiers
“Voice of Europe” had published several interviews with Bystron, as well as with his party colleague Maximilian Krah, the AfD’s top candidate in the European elections. In it they used Russia-friendly narratives and, for example, opposed arms deliveries to Ukraine. Krah and Bystron have long been acquainted with the alleged “Voice of Europe” financier Medvedchuk.
Both politicians paid a “solidarity visit” to Medvedchuk in Kiev in 2021, where he was under house arrest at the time on charges of high treason. In September 2022, Medvedchuk was released and transferred to Russia as part of a prisoner exchange between Moscow and Kiev. Vladimir Putin is godfather to Medvedchuk’s daughter.
Accusations also against Krah
After the allegations against “Voice of Europe” became known, Krah said he gave the portal two interviews, one of them in Prague. “Of course I didn’t get any money for it, neither for myself nor for the party.”
It was only on Tuesday that further allegations against Krah became known, indicating payments from a Russia-friendly network. As “Spiegel” and the ZDF magazine “Frontal” reported, Krah was interrogated for an hour when entering the USA in December 2023. The reason was an older chat message from the US-sanctioned pro-Russian politician Oleg Voloshyn, who is also considered a close confidante of Medvedchuk. In it he assured Krah that the problem with “compensations” for “technical expenses” had been solved. From May onwards “it will be as it was before February”.
Krah rejected the suspicion that he had been paid covertly by Woloshyn: “At no time did I accept a single cent of money from Mr. Woloshyn, including travel expenses or other prepaid costs,” said Krah in an interview with “Frontal.”