A German politician has been filmed taking large sums of cash from a Kremlin-supporting broadcaster, Czech intelligence has claimed.
Petr Bystron, who is standing for Alternative for Germany (AfD) at European parliamentary elections in June, allegedly received €20,000 (£17,000) in cash from the manager of a Russian propaganda network while sitting in a parked car, recordings indicate.
Mr Bystron, who also sits on the Bundestag’s foreign affairs committee, has previously denied allegations of taking Russian money as a “defamation campaign”.
The Security Information Service (BIS), the Czech Republic’s domestic intelligence agency, now says Mr Bystron met with Artem Marchevsky, who allegedly managed a Kremlin-backed propaganda front called Voice of Europe, at least three times in the past six months.
Too many Putin-worshipping Russians live in Germany. You can usually tell who they are by their names, when a 20-something guy is named „Karl“ or „Eugen“ or some similarly old-ass German name nowadays, they’re most likely Russian. It’s creepy why don’t they go live with their Führer?
I can belive in Eugen being russian Евгений, but Karl? Really, Karl?
Yep!
It’s too bad politicians don’t have an ethical score/rating, so that the citizenry can consider that when they choose who they vote for.
So, in Germany, does anything happen to this Russia war enabler? Or is it like America where someone just screams “both sides” and “but his tan suit” and all courts and laws get disabled?
My guess is if this blows up enough and the far right can’t simply deny that it happened any more they will distance themselves a bit, perhaps throw him out.
Its just lip service though, the party is in large parts propped up by russia, and the members are all either corrupt shitstains doing the same as the guy who got caught or brainwashed idiots who themselves are the best argument against democracy and equal voices for everyone.
The same playbook as your Republicans
Well, his party is trying to make people forget he’s in there for fear of losing votes. Given that this party is the “presentable” face of the hard right I hope he gets as much media attention as possible.
Not sure anything is going to happen to him personally but he’s a politician and this is corruption so probably not.
My logic says yes but mostly it’s gonna be PR issues. But reality says there won’t be any other consequences because politicians don’t like to oust other politicians and courts don’t wanna get involved with separation of power issues.
So no but yes but no.
Darn.
Thanks for the info. (Not sarcasm)
We call them “exceptions” here, they’ll kick him out and say everyone else of the AfD is not like that. People will believe it and keep voting for them even harder because now. It’s a shit show.
How surprising… not. Here in hungary also the state party (fidesz) and their puppet party “mi hazánk” is controlled by putin
I’d talk them into giving me lots of money, then reveal it, and donate it to Ukraine.
A noble thing if you could pull it off.
But stay away from windows for the rest of your life and always prepare your own tea.
I’m sure they can handle a little polonium in their diet…
That I’d be OK with. Or just pocketing the cash and telling their own agents who’s bribing and how.
But this twat might be dumb enough to actually do some dumb shit in return.
Also 20k, are the Russians that broke? The dude so insignificant? Or this just the tip of the money pile?
This isn’t a uniquely German problem >.>
Do you receive national treasures? I want to ship one. It’s not very old, just 71 years, but it is most expensive national treasure.
I’m willing to ship it with Gelendzik Palace, just take it, please.
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Yep, and here in Fascistelli-d’Italia-land we’ve won the competition for the “most smartest” one I’m afraid:
AfD, fucking russian stooges.
Of course fucking of course, I wasn’t askin’ I was tellin’
Are you seriously saying that the guy who was in contact with a Russian propaganda outlet was involving with Russia?
I’m shocked. Shocked I tell you!
That’s what the news is about…
The thing is, it was already known they were in contact and the politician in question claimed he did nothing sketchy. So he’s not only corrupt, or a traitor to our country, or (most likely) both, he also already publicly lied about it and there is supposedly evidence he actually accepted money. This makes things much worse for him.
His party also already claimed it’s a smear campaign, so if there really is evidence, they’ll look pretty stupid as well (although this really isn’t news).
But this isn’t about a new case, it’s literally about the same thing. Your initial comment simply does not make sense.
Sure, Germany’s conservatives take payments from Putin just like U.S. conservatives, but how many handjobs have they given in a theater full of kids? They need to step up their conservative game.
Pedophilia has a long and storied tradition in German politics. It’s just part of their culture.
From the late 1960s until the early 1990s, with the authorization and financial support of the Berlin Senate, Kentler placed neglected youth as foster children in the homes of single pedophile fathers with the ostensible purpose of resocializing them, while explicitly encouraging sexual contact between them.
Jesus fucking christ. What a horrible day to be able to read…
I thought that sounded like a Behind the Bastards episode (The School that Raped Everybody), but that looks to be a different German child rape scandal about the Odenwald school.
Yeah, I got this from TrueAnon, although I couldn’t tell you the episode off-hand.
What the actual fuck???
FCK NZS
oh look, it’s
another CONSERVATIVE TRAITOR
The AfD isnt conservative. They are facist to neo nazi.
Bernd Höcke is best friends with nazis and is allowed to be called a facist
Potato potato
Oh no no no! There is a huge difference between facism and national socialism!! I am german i know a thing or too! National socialism is based in extermination, facism isnt!
Oh. I suppose my US bias is showing as the conservatives are basically nazis here.
Your conservatives are faar from being nazis! Facists, yes. But not nazis! Stop crying wolf. There are defenetly nazis out there that need to be stoped!
Here’s an example of some of the things going on here. Conservatives may not consider themselves nazis. But nazis sure do seem think they have a lot in common with conservatives.
Funny how an american thinks us europeans dont get your news here haha
National socialism is a misnomer. The Nazis were not socialistic at all, in fact socialists were one of the first groups to be detained and/or executed as political enemies. They were pretty much just fascists with some nationalistic ideas.
The idiologie is called national socialism because their party was the Nationalsozialistische Arbeiter Partei NSDAP. Nazi is just short for Nationalsozialist (in english national socialist)
Ofc just because their name had socialist in the name doesnt mean they were socialists! Dont try to explain the nazis and what they did to a german.
You on the otherhand, seem to not grasp the difference between, nationalism, facism and national socialism. So here for you the difference: Nationalism: the belief of once nation/culture to be above and better than everyone else
Facism: same as nationalism just way more militaristic and beliefing in “the weak shall make way for the strong for they rule the world”
National socialism: all other cultures and nations should be eradicated. Belief and loyalty is the strong leader and nothing else
Every idiologie can be added with antisemitism anti christianism or any other hatret against religion
Alter, komm mal von deinem hohen Ross runter. Du bist nicht der einzige Deutsche hier und Deutscher zu sein macht dich nicht zu einer Koryphäe in Sachen politischer Ideologien nur weil du in der Schule eine 1 in Geschichte geschrieben hast. Schau mal lieber die Definitionen von Faschismus und Nationalismus nach bevor du hier deine Mentalgymnastik ablässt, denn das, was du geschrieben hast ist nicht richtig.
Nationalsozialisten waren einfach nur Faschisten mit der Idee von Großdeutschland (einer ultranationalistischen Idee, kongruent mit faschistischer Ideologie). Mit Sozialismus hatte die ganze Sache rein gar nix zu tun und zwar nicht im Geringsten.
Bro hadn’t heard of Monero.
Seriously though, those Czechs are pretty keen on taking care of shit atm.
Not even the corrupt politicians believe in crypto lmao
Don’t know what can 20k euro achieve. Russia must be lacking of money.
If your blackmailing someone forcing them to take cash from you can them be used to blackmail the person further. They can press on them more, because they are now collaborators and won’t get any symphony from the public or a jury.
To be fair, I doubt the public would give them a symphony either way. Seems like it’d be expensive and require a lot of training.
Small enough to not get noticed, too little to cover their lifestyle for long, yet too convenient to not take :)
The big paydays usually happen through companies the politician and his ilk are in the board of, which just score very lucrative contracts or orders time after time. Or the politician is hired as a consultant for such companies, collecting fabulous kickbacks. Or the promise of early retirement into “window-looking jobs,” employment where they have a title, high income and zero responsibilities.
This may have been one of a series of payments. This is only one that leeked.
Very likely this. Transfers above a certain threshold are automatically looked into to prevent money laundering, so getting a big bunch of cash at once is less convenient than getting several, smaller payments.
You think this is going through the bank?
I would think so, yeah. Purchases of over 10,000€ are automatically put under investigation, so a larger bribe would be tedious to launder. I’m not a money laundering expert tho, so I don’t know how they do it. That’s just how I would prefer to be bribed, I guess lol
In this case it was €20k in cash. Other ways is 'after dinner" speaking fees.
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European thinking politicians consider €20.000 a “large sums of cash”?
That’s cute.
Its rarely just €20.000
You’re often seeing the tip of the iceberg, with significantly more money changing hands under the table or being paid out with in-kind services like friendly media coverage or consulting services or loans.
You’d be surprised how little money it takes to influence a US politician
I’ve had the “pleasure” of rubbing elbows with a few of the people currently engaged in
briberypolitical donations. I hear the going rate is about $10k and a nice meal.Aren’t their salary is roughly 6 figure? Why bother risking your career for the amount you make in 2 week?
For 100k, that’s understandable. But 10k and a nice meal? I mean , I’m low class but you can’t even buy me for a day with that amount.
I think that’s psychological. Irrational.
It’s some kind of not absent, but inverted moral principle. Where if someone buys you, you get bought. Even if it’s a small sum. Like as if between being for sale and not being for sale the former were morally preferable.
Maybe also some perverted understanding of valuing every dime.
Depends on the job, but I think more like 5 figures. Still enough to live comfortably, but of course not enough for these greedy fucks. The reason so many are millionaires is not their salaries.
You should see how many American politicians are just as corrupt for less money, I was surprised when I saw Devin Nunes was only making $15K from one of the bribery schemes that was supporting him while he was in Congress. I guess it all comes down to knowing your worth to the scumbags you work for. 🤷♂️
This is actually a sign of rampant corruption. Bribery is a tight market, and with a lot of politicians willing to accept bribes the cost drops significantly. It’s one of the few areas where capitalism behaves as believed.
That’s honestly the most disgusting part of it to me. The amount of money they make doing it is barely enough to insulate them from the effects of living in a worse country
If they got $250k to redirect $1m in funding to a company, I wouldn’t like it but I would understand why someone without morals would sell out like that
But it’s more like $100k over a decade at the cost of billions to the country. Half the time, they’re basically just funding their next campaign… they’re burning our society, and they don’t even come out ahead
Just greedy short sighted fools who are willing to abase themselves to scum, or they are sociopathic monsters who don’t care about anything but whatever they want.
Devin Nunes was only making $15K from one of the bribery schemes that was supporting him
“One of the bribery schemes”…
If they’re selling out to one faction, there’s nothing stopping them from taking bribes from a bunch of other sources as well.
I doubt there are exclusivity contracts in place.
That’s the thing. Campaigns are super expensive AND the politician doesn’t get to keep the money, so if you can find a politician who takes cash payment it’s way cheaper than “legitimate” political spending.
It’s in a twisted way a major reason mega corps like the massive expense of lobbying and PACs. Bribes are cheap and anybody can do it, but pulling together millions for PACs and campaigns is something smaller companies and individuals can’t do.
A common theme in politics around the world is that you can buy politicians for a shockingly low amount of money. In the UK we’ve had politicians paid off for similar amounts, or politicians bought for £100k for basically their entire career.
100,000 usd, pound, or euro would be enough to buy my loyalty for a long while. So I guess I get it.
My number is probably higher tbh. I mean I suppose it depends on the source of money, if it was russia they would have to add half a dozen more zeros.
It’s not a large sum at all. That’s one of the most shameful facts of all these corrupt shitheads. They sell their countries out for such a pittance.
Funny isn’t it…all the time our right wing assholes talk about foreign traitors but in the end it’s always them. I bet their Nazi grandfathers are rotating in their graves at lightspeed 😂
They know the most about how bribery works, and just assume everyone else is as corrupt as they are themselves.
But Erich Honecker is laughing.
