Tatjana ZdanokaA Latvian member of parliament, for at least 13 years Federal Security Service (FSB), according to various email exchanges uncovered by international investigative journalists group Re:Baltica and independent Russian media platform The Insider. Zdanoka himself admitted that the obtained emails were real.
Latvian politician most recently elected to the European Parliament by the party Union of Latvian Russians (LKS) acknowledged corresponding between 2004 and 2013 with a person identified by investigators as an FSB agent, but denied knowing the person’s connections to Russian intelligence.
Zdanoka was part of a delegation of MEPs that visited Estremera prison in 2017. Oriol Junqueras And Joaquim Forn. Besides Zdanoka, flamenco also participated Mark Demesmaeker and french José Bovefrom the Greens and Marie-Pierre VieuFrom the European United Left. Four years later, with the leaders of the ‘procés’ already pardoned, Junqueras and Raul Romeva He met with Zdanoka in Brussels at the beginning.
According to the investigation, the member of the European Parliament reported on his activities in favor of Russia Dmitri GladeiHe is one of two alleged contacts in the FSB. According to the investigation, St. A senior FSB member at its headquarters in St. Petersburg, Gladei led Latvian politics from approximately 2004 to 2013. Afterwards, Zdanoka was in regular contact with him. Sergei BeltyukovAn officer of the Federal Security Service of Russia since 1993.
The member of the European Parliament claims that Gladéi was a friend of his youth whom he met while learning to ski. North Caucasus in the former USSR. He held meetings with her in Brussels and elsewhere, and from time to time asked her for a statue of St. Petersburg, which was part of the decoration. He requested financial assistance for various pro-Russian projects, including the purchase of 100,000 meters of fabric for St. George ribbons. St. George’s Cross It was used in the Russian Empire and was recovered by Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine almost two years ago, St. in the shape of the letter Z. George ribbons, Russian military sign in the war in Ukraine. His activities towards Russia included trips to Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula as an “election observer” during the 2014 annexation and holding sessions and exhibitions in Crimea. European Parliament about the situation of Russians in the Baltic states, among other tasks.
Statements regarding cooperation with the FSB are no surprise to experts on this subject Latviawhere it is seen as agent with Russian influence Since he became a politician in the late 1980s.
Born in Riga in 1950, Zdanoka studied mathematics. Communist Party of the Soviet Union He became active in supporting Russian interests between 1971 and 1991 (something he notes on his European Parliament page) and following Latvia’s independence in the early 1990s. He received Latvian citizenship in 1996 and speaks Russian, Latvian, English and French.