Two Spanish activists In favor of Vladimir Putin’s regime included in a scope List of 34 collaborators of various nationalities in Russia’s invasion of UkraineThe event called for legal warnings, sanctions and visa restrictions from the USA, the EU and their governments.
accuses 34 Center for Democratic Integrity(CDI, think tank The Vienna-based strategic analysis office) participated in the Kremlin’s propaganda campaign as so-called non-Russian “international observers.” to provide legitimacy to elections organized by Moscow is in Ukrainian territory that it militarily occupied between 8 and 10 September.
Both activists Enrique Refoyo and Fernando Moragón. Both of them popular in far-right circles For his speeches, debates, appearances on webTVs and pro-Russian, anti-EU and anti-NATO campaigns during the current phase of the invasion of Ukraine, which started in February 2022. Since 2014 – the year of the occupation of Crimea – Moscow has intensified its deployment interference, propaganda and disinformation In Western countries, they establish relationships with the European far-right, whose narratives resonate across networks.
While Refoyo and Moragón were endorsing Russian elections in Ukraine, on the 10th, not far away, a Russian rocket killed an aid worker. Emma SameThe attack was described as a “war crime” by the Spanish Government. The administration asked the court in The Hague to investigate the deadly attack on the young Catalan woman.
Elections are under control
Electoral process supported by Refoyo and Moragón Voting Day, They are being renewed in Russia 4,000 regional positions Various organizations in the 85 districts of the Federation.
This year, the Russian government added these borders as if they were its own territory: Military occupied regions of Ukraine: Crimea and Donbas (Donetsk and Luhansk), Kherson and Zaporiya oblasts (districts, provinces or regions).
Enrique Refoyo comes to support elections Kherson, According to the CDI list, as well as information released by the Tass agency and various Russian political leaders. Refoyo is the main interpreter and disseminator in Spain of the geostrategic propositions of Eurasianism. The closest ideologist of Russian ultranationalism to Putin is Alexander Duguin. Dugin is one of the presidents in Moscow who most firmly supports theories about the corruption of the West, homophobia, xenophobia, pan-Slavism and that Russia is the “third Rome”, defending so-called “traditional Christian values”.
Refoyo collaborated on defunct ultra television channel 7NN and before that, he gave speeches on geostrategy supported by. neo-fascist formation MSR. The Russian embassy named him as a co-organizer of the event in its thank you speech this year. Street march of the Immortal Regiment In Madrid, commemorating Russia’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.
The other Spaniard on the list, Fernando Moragón, was confirmed in the 9th place in Zaporiya, in the south of the Ukrainian arc, occupied by Russia since February 22. Moragón heads the small entity Hispano-Russian Observatory of Eurasia and collaborates with the ultra-online television channel Business TVSomeone Pro-Kremlin propaganda soundboardsIts audience increased in the months after the invasion of Ukraine.
On August 28 This is an advertisement that calling to the desert Ukrainian soldiers who participated in the counter-offensive launched by Kiev.
blame
Both activists were included by the Center for Democratic Integrity on a list of “non-Russians taking part in the ‘international observation’ of Russian elections in the occupied Ukrainian territory,” according to a statement from Vienna and Berlin last week.
CDI is a non-governmental organization headquartered in Vienna, led by a Ukrainian political scientist and university professor in Austria. Anton Shekhovtsovresearcher Putin regime’s ties to the European far right. The organization is jointly managed by a Russian expert and also a German professor. Andreas Umland.
In its statement, the organization recalls that the elections, supported by these two Spanish activists, among others, were condemned and branded by the European Commission as “a new and useless initiative by Russia”. legitimize or normalize illegal military control and attempted to annex part of Ukrainian territory.” The Ukrainian Government considers the participation of these activists in the elections as “illegal entry” into its territory.
In the same week, the US State Department described the elections in the occupied territories as “nothing more than a propaganda exercise”, reminding people who participated in the elections as international observers. Russia’s “fake elections” in Ukraine “May be subject to sanctions and visa restrictions.”
CDI reminds us that this technique is common in campaigns in Russia: “For two decades, Russian authorities have used ‘international observers’ to test this. whitewash fraudulent elections and illegitimate plebiscites.”
Radicals
Many of the names included in CDI’s “fake observers” complaint are also on the list of 537 “biased observers” prepared by the USA. EPDE (European Platform for Democratic Elections)Bringing together organizations from Eastern Europe (including two Ukrainians and one Moldovan), Germany and Scandinavia to advocate for cleanliness and non-interference in electoral processes. The platform is supported by the Council of Europe, the European Commission and the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Besides the Spaniard Moragón, on both lists, incidentally, is André Chanclu, a veteran of the radical neo-fascist wing of French lepenism; one of the leading contacts of the Kremlin connection in France, as this newspaper has previously reported.
The Dutch pro-Russian propagandist also appears on both lists. Sonja Van den EndeSputnik agency collaborators Wyatt Reed (North America) and Sebastian Salgado (Argentinian), advisor to the Sprska government of the Bosnian Serb Republic Srdan Perisic or Mexican activist Israel Arconada, ‘Court’A member of Abertzale’s international relations organization, Askapena, has left.
All of those mentioned have participated in various election processes held in the occupied territories of Ukraine since 2014 as observers invited by Russia.