One of these people is a man named Max Schlund, based in the western German city of Cologne, Poland’s biznesalert.pl website reported on Wednesday, citing the Reuters probe.
Born Rostislav Teslyuk, the man settled in Germany some 10 years ago, changing his name to Max Schlund, according to Reuters.
Teslyuk is a Russian former air force officer; he was linked to pro-Russia rallies in Cologne last year, biznesalert.pl said.
The Reuters investigation found that a Russian government agency paid for Teslyuk’s plane ticket to Moscow “for a conference where President Vladimir Putin was the keynote speaker.”
The agency in question, Rossotrudnichestvo, is currently under European Union sanctions “for running a network of agents of influence spreading Kremlin narratives,” according to Reuters.
Another pro-Russia activist profiled by Reuters is an individual by the name of Andrei Kharkovsky, who “pledges allegiance to a Cossack society that is supporting Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine,” the probe also found.
People with ‘two faces’
The investigation has also revealed that some of the people most actively calling for a pro-Russian change in German policy have “two faces,” biznesalert.pl said.
Some of them “use aliases, and have undisclosed ties to Russia and Russian entities under international sanctions, or to far-right organisations,” according to Reuters.
One of the people identified by Reuters is a proponent of a far-right ideology, according to German authorities.
Some fellow proponents of this ideology were accused by German police in December of plotting to overthrow the state, according to Reuters.
The man identified by Reuters runs a German-language social media channel called the “Putin Fanclub,” biznesalert.pl reported.
Another is “a motorcycle enthusiast who posts online alleging atrocities by Ukraine’s army and has raised money for a Russian biker gang that is under US and EU sanctions for backing Putin’s war,” according to the Reuters probe.
Historical German-Russian ties
Reuters also reported that “ties between Germany and Russia stretch back centuries.”
It noted that Russian Empress Catherine the Great invited her German compatriots to move to Russia.
Between 1992 and 2002, “around 1.5 million of these settlers’ descendants moved back to Germany, taking advantage of laws that allowed people of German ancestry to claim citizenship,” according to a special report published by Reuters.
According to German authorities, this community tends to vote for the far right, such as the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party, biznesalert.pl reported.
The German Communist Party has also come under the influence of these circles, the Polish website added.
When the German Communist Party held a “peace and solidarity” festival in Berlin in August last year, the programme included a panel discussion entitled “Peace with Russia,” according to Reuters.
One of the panellists was Oleg Eremenko, a Russian-German businessman who argued that Ukrainian youths were being taught to hate Russia, the probe found.
Eremenko, who has long been active in the Russian German community, confirmed to Reuters that he had worked for Russian military intelligence, the GRU, but added that now he was “promoting Russian culture” in Germany, biznesalert.pl reported.
Wednesday is day 315 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: biznesalert.pl, Reuters, euronews.com
