Ralf Dekker, during his time as a FVD (Forum for Democracy) MP, had contact with Russian politicians who are on the sanctions list of the EU and the US, according to research by NRC. Thierry Baudet’s party has always strongly denied that there were contacts between FVD and Russia.
According to the newspaper, it concerns a video conference in which Moscow is conducting an anti-NATO campaign.
On March 25 of this year, Dekker had a video conversation with Russian senators Konstantin Kosachev and Andrey Klimov. Both are members of Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party and are on sanctions lists of, among others, the EU and the US because they support the war in Ukraine.
As far as is known, this is the first time that a Dutch parliamentarian has had direct contact with Russian politicians from Putin’s circle since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The conversation was organized by the Russian Academy of Sciences and was called Prospects for socio-economic cooperation between Russia and the countries of the European Union.
NRC found that Klimov told Russian media after the digital meeting about a “good, serious conversation” with European parliamentarians. The conversation “offers the opportunity for the healthy forces within the EU to restore the contacts that existed with Russia,” the Russian senator said.
Dekker repeats Russian propaganda about NATO
Dekker regularly comes up with Kremlin propaganda in debates. “NATO will lose the war in Ukraine to Russia,” he said on February 5 during a committee debate with Defense Minister Ruben Brekelmans about NATO. “Fighting continues to the last Ukrainian, it seems. The Ukrainian army, or actually NATO, is on the verge of total collapse.”
According to Dekker, the alliance is “mainly good as a story factory, fantasy land, the creepy bus, with Zelensky as a superhero.” According to him, there is no enemy. “It is really time to say goodbye to NATO.”
In the spring of 2024, a report came from the Czech Republic that, among others, Dutch politicians were being paid by Russia to spread pro-Russian propaganda.
The payments would have been made via the radical right-wing news site Voice of Europe. It was not mentioned which politicians were involved and which party they belong to. But Voice of Europe has regularly interviewed Baudet and former FVD politician Marcel de Graaff.
Baudet has always denied that he was paid to spread Russian propaganda. That he spreads Russian propaganda is clear. Last month, during a debate about the NATO summit in The Hague, the FVD leader said: “The US started this war, provoked and organized it all in Ukraine, bombed the Nord Stream pipeline and lured us into this insane conflict.”
Baudet ignores the fact that Russia invaded sovereign Ukraine on February 24, 2022. According to Baudet, the Netherlands does not have to fear Russia. “There is in no way a threat – a territorial threat or another threat – to the Netherlands from Russia.”