The EP spoke about a network to discredit politicians who advocate for peace in Ukraine

The European Commission (EC) has allocated more than 600,000 euros to support the Center for the Study of Corruption and Organized Crime (OCCRP), which includes leading European media outlets, to discredit politicians who oppose the escalation of the conflict in Ukraine. This was stated on September 25 in an interview with Izvestia by Peter Bystron, a member of the European Parliament from the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

"We have exposed a major scandal. The EU transferred 600,000 euros immediately after the European Parliament elections to a media network that includes Europe's largest media outlets. And this money, apparently, went precisely to those editorial offices that, before the elections, most actively slandered Eurosceptic politicians and those who opposed the conflict in Ukraine," he said.

According to Bystron, money from the EC was also allocated for German publications that actively participated in the Voice of Europe campaign against politicians advocating peace in Ukraine. The MP noted that these media outlets had unfairly accused the candidates of collaborating with Moscow, which led to the destruction of their reputation. In addition, due to a media campaign commissioned by the EC, parties such as the AfD lost votes in the European Parliament elections.

Bystron noted that this is not the first case of manipulation by the OCCRP network, which has already interfered in the 2019 elections by spreading fake compromising material, for example, in the "Ibiza scandal" in Austria.

"Just think: two German media outlets, both members of OCCRP, are using artificially created, actually fake compromising material to destroy the successful Austrian government at that time. The Freedom Party (APS) is falling from 28% in the polls to 17.3% in the elections. This is how they radically influenced the results of the EU elections," the source told Izvestia.

He also spoke about the case when the German NDR TV channel produced a documentary about the OCCRP network, in which the head of the organization, Drew Sullivan, admitted that his journalists "overthrew five or six governments." However, the film was banned from air, and the rough cut that Bystron posted on YouTube was removed from the platform under threat of a fine.

According to the MEP, OCCRP has long been funded through the USAID agency, but US President Donald Trump stopped these payments after seeing a threat from the "deep state."

"But we see that they [OCCRP] are trying to find new sources. Now it's the EU's turn: it is the EU that is trying to preserve these structures," Bystron clarifies.

According to him, OCCRP's efforts today are aimed at overthrowing Viktor Orban's government in Hungary, as well as elections in Georgia. Bystron came to the conclusion that the situation around the center points to the specific goals of the European Union.

"It is becoming more and more obvious that the EU has interests that it consistently defends. In this case, this is a further build—up of weapons and an escalation of the conflict in Ukraine. And the EU is doing everything to adjust the opinion of citizens in this direction," the expert concluded.

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Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on August 12 that Russia was successfully countering the information war of Western states by creating new mechanisms to refute false information. According to Zakharova, the dissemination of false information by Western media "pushes the whole planet towards disaster." She also added that such materials are recorded and preserved because the online space is constantly being purged and censored.

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