That Russia serves as a reliable cash machine for Europe’s far-right political forces has long been an open secret.
Back in 2014, for example, French media reported that the country’s far-right National Front party had funded its election campaign with loans worth €11m from Russian banks. The party, which has since rebranded as presidential candidate Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National, has famously struggled to raise funds, with French banks declining to lend it money due to its racist and anti-Semitic past.
Two years later, journalists in Italy alleged that then-interior minister Matteo Salvini’s far-right Lega party had struck an oil deal with Russia, which would see profits diverted to Lega to finance its 2019 European Parliament election campaign. Buzzfeed later reported having obtained an audio recording of a meeting at which the deal was negotiated, which was attended by a close aide of Salvini’s, though there is no evidence the deal was ever executed and Salvini has rejected the allegations as “fantasies”. The case is being investigated by prosecutors in Milan.
