Dutch Far-Right Ideologue Met Medvedev and Influence Network Leaders at Black Sea Summit

On Decem­ber 10, 2024, the NRC report­ed that John Laugh­land, Forum for Democ­ra­cy’s par­ty ide­o­logue, attend­ed a Krem­lin-linked con­fer­ence in Sochi where he met with key fig­ures from the Voice of Europe influ­ence scan­dal. The arti­cle begins:

The web­site of Putin’s rul­ing par­ty Unit­ed Rus­sia ded­i­cat­ed a spe­cial arti­cle to FVD mem­ber John Laugh­land’s remarks dur­ing a sym­po­sium in Sochi, on the Black Sea. The Brit — wear­ing a dark blue suit, pink shirt, and flo­ral tie — stands relaxed among the audi­ence in the pho­to, micro­phone casu­al­ly held in his right hand. Laugh­land, accord­ing to the arti­cle, spoke out against Amer­i­can hege­mo­ny and in favor of a mul­ti­po­lar world — a world where the West takes Moscow’s inter­ests into account. John Laugh­land (1963) has been FVD chair­man Thier­ry Baude­t’s men­tor and right-hand man for about fif­teen years, who accord­ing to Baudet wrote his dis­ser­ta­tion “with and through him.” Between 2008 and 2018, the Euroscep­tic Brit was research direc­tor at a Russ­ian-fund­ed insti­tute in Paris. Cur­rent­ly, Laugh­land teach­es at the Catholic Uni­ver­si­ty of Vendée (ICES) and is direc­tor of FVD’s inter­na­tion­al depart­ment… [trans­la­tion by Claud AI]

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Key Points:

1. Laugh­land attend­ed a con­fer­ence orga­nized by Putin’s par­ty along­side key fig­ures involved in the Voice of Europe influ­ence scandal.
2. The FVD ide­o­logue met with for­mer Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Medvedev despite pre­vi­ous denials of main­tain­ing Krem­lin connections.
3. Dutch polit­i­cal par­ty Volt has request­ed an emer­gency debate, cit­ing con­cerns about grow­ing Russ­ian influ­ence in the Nether­lands and Europe.
4. The con­fer­ence includ­ed indi­vid­u­als under inves­ti­ga­tion for Russ­ian influ­ence oper­a­tions, reveal­ing con­nec­tions to a broad­er network.