A previous article explored, in part, the Russian/Soviet history of support for the far-right in Europe with focus on Putin's role. This article takes an alternative perspective, delving into the detail of uncovered cases of Russian and Chinese corruption of modern Europe's politicians and political systems with a clear focus on the European parliament.

In November 2025 Nathan Gill, the now former leader of the Welsh wing of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party, was found guilty of bribery after accepting bribes from a Ukrainian politician aligned to the Kremlin in order to push their agenda in the European parliament (Gill was a sitting MEP at the time of the offense). Most damningly, the verdict followed his confession to the crime.

This is not the first case in Europe. Across the continent, the past decade has produced a pattern of political actors either working with, being cultivated by, or becoming entangled in the influence networks of hostile foreign states. Most notably Russia and China. Some cases have resulted in clear criminal convictions and therefore belong to the domain of fact rather than speculation. Others sit in a legal limbo: charges filed, offices raided, parliamentary immunity lifted, or intelligence agencies issuing formal warnings, but without a finished verdict. Finally, there is a wider landscape of political actors whose relationships, financial arrangements, or leaked communications raise profound suspicion even though they remain outside the reach of prosecutions, at least for now.

By dividing these events into Proven, Pending, and Ambiguous categories, the depth and breadth of foreign interference in European democratic life can be grasped thus showing this to be one of the most pertinent threats to our democracies.

Proven

These are cases in which European courts have formally and unequivocally convicted political actors or their staff for espionage, corruption linked to Russian or Chinese interests, or for directly advancing hostile state operations.

Nathan Gill Bribery for Pro-Russian Influence (United Kingdom)

On November 21^st 2025, former MEP Nathan Gill was sentenced to over ten years in prison for accepting secret payments from Oleg Voloshyn, a Ukrainian politician tied to sanctioned Kremlin proxy Viktor Medvedchuk and wanted for treason in Ukraine. The court found that Gill used his platform in the European Parliament to advance Moscow’s interests, making deliberate interventions that aligned with the Kremlin’s foreign policy narratives.[1][2][3] Moreover, Gill was not only pushing Russian talking points but actively seeking to enlist other Brexit party MEPs at the time. None of these individuals have been proven to take Russian money. [2]

The case, investigated by the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command, also highlighted that Gill had a long-cited relationship with the Kremlin, having been to both Ukraine and Moldova to meet pro-Russian figures, thereafter joining boards of pro-Kremlin Ukrainian TV channels.

The significance of this case lies in its lack of ambiguity, a British politician took cash to act as a voice for Russia inside an EU institution. There is no interpretive doubt. It is simply a rare instance in which a foreign-influence scheme was exposed completely enough for a criminal conviction to follow. As emphasised in the introduction to this article, he confessed to the crime.

His position as the leader of Reform UK Wales was a prominent position in the party that put him in close proximity to Nigel Farage and the party leader Richard Tice.

Jian Guo Espionage on Behalf of China (Germany)

Earlier in 2025, a Dresden court convicted Jian Guo, an aide to the far right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) politician Maximilian Krah, for passing confidential European Parliament documents to Chinese intelligence and for spying on members of the Chinese diaspora in Germany.[4][5][6]
This remains the most serious proven case of Chinese political espionage inside EU institutions. Because Guo served as a parliamentary assistant, the conviction demonstrates that even the administrative architecture of European democracy (staffers, researchers, aides) is vulnerable to long-term infiltration by intelligence services. In fact, staffers may be one of the most prone individuals in order to the infiltrate and influence of political agendas with them being less publicly exposed, thus less scrutinised.

Béla Kovács Espionage for Russia (Hungary)

Béla Kovács, long nicknamed “KGBela” in Hungary given the level of suspicion, served as a Jobbik MEP while allegedly passing information to Russian intelligence. After years of investigation, the Hungarian Curia upheld a sentence of five years' imprisonment for espionage and related offences.[7][8]
Kovács fled Hungary and is believed to reside in Russia. His case is the clearest example of an EU-level elected representative being conclusively found to have worked on behalf of Russian intelligence.

These three cases form the small but crucial set of proven penetrations of European political institutions.

Pending and/or Likely

Here the following individuals or networks are considered that are formally under investigation, charged, or subject to intelligence action, but without a completed judicial process. These go beyond mere speculation. Each involves active state-level scrutiny and documented evidence sufficient to trigger official proceedings.

Christine Lee MI5 Interference Alert (United Kingdom)

In 2022, MI5 issued a rarely used interference alert to Parliament naming Christine Lee, a prominent solicitor and founder of organisations such as the British Chinese Project, as having “knowingly engaged in political interference” on behalf of the Chinese state. Lee challenged the alert, but in 2024 the Investigatory Powers Tribunal upheld MI5’s assessment as lawful and rational.[9][10]
The case, at this time, sits on the threshold of legal sufficiency in order to begin proceedings. MI5 believes the threat is real enough to warrant public warning yet no prosecution has followed.

Petr Bystron Russian Funding Allegations (Germany)

In 2024, Czech intelligence dismantled the Russian-backed “Voice of Europe” platform, alleging that AfD MP Petr Bystron received cash from Medvedchuk’s network to promote pro-Kremlin messaging.[11][12] German prosecutors have raided properties, and Bystron’s parliamentary immunity has been restricted. He denies the allegations.

Specifically, investigators claim that between 2020 and 2023, Bystron made suspicious cash deposits into his company’s account, sums which were then withdrawn in cash (in €200 bills), a pattern typical of laundering or concealment. The purpose of this influence was to push interests that favoured the Russian government, such as opposing sanctions [27]

The legal process has not concluded, but this remains one of the most striking examples of Kremlin interference timed to influence European elections, with Bystron becoming an MEP in July 2024 after resigning his seat in the German parliament.

Maximilian Krah Investigations into Foreign Influence (Germany)

Following the conviction of his aide for espionage, Krah himself became the subject of multiple investigations into potential financial support from both Chinese and Russian intermediaries.[13]

Prosecutors in Dresden opened a preliminary inquiry in 2025 into whether he received more than €50,000 from companies close to his former assistant between 2019 and 2022, allegedly in connection with his work as a Member of the European Parliament.[28][30][31] In September 2025 the Bundestag unanimously lifted his parliamentary immunity, allowing investigators to execute search and seizure warrants at his offices in Berlin and at private and business premises in Dresden and Brussels, on suspicion of bribery and money laundering linked to Chinese payments.[29][30][31]

Krah, now a prominent AfD MP after previously serving as the party’s lead candidate for the European elections, has dismissed the allegations as “absurd” and politically motivated.[29][31] With prosecutors still assessing whether there are sufficient grounds to bring charges, this remains a live, unresolved case in which the proven espionage conviction of his close assistant sharply raises the political and security stakes.[28][29][30][31]

Nikolay Malinov Espionage Charges and Sanctions (Bulgaria)

Bulgarian prosecutors charged Malinov with espionage for Russia in 2019 and accused him of taking funding from Russian organisations linked to influence operations. He was later sanctioned by the US Treasury.[14][15]
The Bulgarian criminal case has stagnated, leaving Malinov in a legal limbo charged but not convicted.

Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry Westminster Espionage Case (United Kingdom)

Two parliamentary researchers were charged under the Official Secrets Act for allegedly providing political intelligence to a Chinese operative. The men had access to senior figures inside Westminster. Cash had worked as a researcher for prominent Conservative MPs, including those involved in shaping the UK’s China policy and serving on foreign affairs committees, while Berry had been employed in similar parliamentary support roles.[37][38]

Prosecutors alleged that both men supplied information on internal political debates, foreign-policy discussions, and parliamentary views toward China material that, while not classified in the traditional sense, would have been of clear strategic value to Chinese intelligence services seeking to map vulnerabilities in Westminster’s policymaking.[37] Intelligence officials later suggested that the intent of the Chinese side was to cultivate long-term access: embedding seemingly junior staff within political networks to monitor opinion formation, identify influential MPs, and exert subtle influence over future legislative stances.[38][39]

In 2025, the Crown Prosecution Service dropped the case after concluding it could not meet the statutory test, largely because the relevant offences under the Official Secrets Act require the foreign state in question to be formally designated as an “enemy” at the time of the alleged conduct.[16] China had never been so designated, leaving prosecutors unable to proceed regardless of the underlying intelligence picture.

Although the case ended without a trial, it exposed a core vulnerability inside Westminster: that parliamentary researchers (often young, ambitious, and poorly vetted) occupy positions of trust close to the centre of policy formulation. The fact that Chinese intelligence sought to exploit this proximity underscores how influence operations increasingly focus on political staff rather than elected politicians themselves.

This supports the earlier examples in the case of Jian Guo, that political staff, out of the public spotlight, are a possible easy means by which to influence political discourse without the individuals facing the same level of scrutiny.

Tatjana Ždanoka FSB Contact Allegations Under Investigation (Latvia/EU)

Leaked emails published in 2024 suggested that long-serving MEP Tatjana Ždanoka, of the Latvian Russian Union party, had sustained contact with the Russian FSB over more than a decade, reporting on political activities and requesting support.[17][18] The European Parliament opened a formal inquiry, and Latvian security services initiated criminal proceedings.
No outcome has yet been reached, but the combination of leaked communications and institutional responses marks this as one of the most serious ongoing cases of suspected Russian infiltration at the EU level.

Ambiguous Though Credible

This final category captures a wide zone of behaviour. Influence operations, compromising financial dependencies, ideological alignment backed by foreign funding, intelligence-service courtship, or documented recruitment attempts. These cases lack evidence to build legal cases, but have the hallmarks of the earlier examples that did eventually lead to proceedings.

Arron Banks Opaque Brexit Funding and Repeated Russian Contacts (United Kingdom)

Banks was the largest private donor to the Brexit campaign. Between 2014 and 2016, he provided millions in loans, services and donations to sister campaign Leave.EU and associated organisations, making him the single most significant private funder of the Brexit mobilisation.[32] He also personally financed aspects of Nigel Farage’s political operations during and after the referendum, including staff, travel and campaign infrastructure, support that continued into Farage’s post UKIP media and political activities.[33] Hence, Farage himself has close ties with both Banks and Gill though the evidence of his direct ties to the Kremlin remain weak.

Multiple investigations revealed that Banks met Russian diplomats repeatedly in the 2015–2016 period and discussed business ventures involving gold and diamond opportunities while simultaneously funding a transformational political campaign.[19][20] These contacts were not fully disclosed at the time, and parliamentary committees later noted discrepancies between Banks’s public statements and documentary evidence.[34]

After a referral from the Electoral Commission, the National Crime Agency ultimately stated in 2019 that it found no evidence of foreign funding behind the £8 million he provided through his companies, and that no offences under electoral or company law could be established.[21] This closed the legal dimension, but it did not resolve the broader questions.

Banks has never provided a comprehensive public breakdown of the origin of his wealth or the internal financing of his companies, and parliamentary inquiries have repeatedly highlighted the opacity of his business structures.[34][35] Intelligence assessments submitted to MPs during the DCMS disinformation hearings described his Russian contacts as “unusual” and “inconsistent with normal donor behaviour”.[35]

In 2022, a High Court judgment in Banks v. Cadwalladr accepted that, at the time of publication, it had been reasonable for journalists to suspect serious issues regarding his Russian links, even though the court did not find that Banks had taken Russian money.[36]

It should be stated that no crime has been proven, yet key aspects of Banks’s financial position, foreign contacts and the scale of his influence-building remain unexplained. The unresolved opacity, with Banks’s own resistance to clarity, continues to shape assessments of Russian outreach to the Brexit movement.

Marine Le Pen and the Russian Loan (France)

Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN) relied on a multimillion-euro loan from a Russian-Czech bank closely linked to Kremlin networks.[22] The loan, taken in 2014 from the First Czech-Russian Bank and later flushed through successor entities after the bank collapsed, tied the party’s financial survival to institutions embedded in Moscow’s political and security orbit. For years RN made repayments to companies connected with former Russian intelligence and political figures, creating a long-term financial dependency unique among major Western European parties. French investigators and journalists repeatedly noted that, although the loan was legal under French rules, its structure and intermediaries placed the party in a position of exposure to Russian influence.

This dependency created a structural vulnerability. Whilst not directly espionage, financial leverage shapes incentives. A party that has historically defended the Kremlin’s geopolitical positions now owed money to Russian-aligned financial networks at the exact moment Russia was escalating its confrontation with Europe.

The perception of indebtedness, combined with RN’s longstanding ideological sympathy for Russian state narratives, raised concerns within French and EU institutions about whether the loan influenced the party’s external posture, from its scepticism toward EU sanctions to its repeated criticism of NATO.

Matteo Salvini and the Metropol Affair (Italy)

A 2019 recording captured Salvini’s associates discussing a covert scheme to channel profits from Russian oil sales into his Lega party.[23] Italian prosecutors dropped the case due to insufficient evidence, but the recording itself remains uncontested.

This episode illustrates how Russian political financing attempts can surface without ever achieving prosecutorial closure.

Heinz-Christian Strache and the “Ibiza Affair” (Austria)

In secretly recorded footage, Strache, then leader of Austria’s FPÖ, discussed granting public contracts in exchange for political support from a woman posing as a Russian oligarch’s niece.[24]
Although the sting was a fabrication, Straches immediate willingness to engage in Kremlin-linked illicit funding illustrates the behavioural landscape in which Russian influence seeks opportunities.

Hungarian Intelligence Operations in Brussels (Hungary/EU)

Investigations by Direkt36 and others reported that Hungarian intelligence officers in Brussels attempted to recruit EU officials and collect sensitive institutional information during the 2010s, operating under diplomatic cover.[25]
This remains an institutional scandal rather than a personal one: no individual politician has been charged though it can be assumed that certain individuals were targeted. It nevertheless shows how EU institutions themselves can become targets of an EU member state aligned with Moscow and Beijing.

Markus Frohnmaier “Controlled by Russia” leak (Germany)

In 2019 a leaked Russian strategy document claimed that Frohnmaier, then an AfD candidate, would be a “fully controlled” pro-Russian voice in the Bundestag if elected.[26] He dismissed the document as fake.
No investigation led to charges, but the leak provides rare documentary insight into Russia’s attempt to cultivate a sitting Western legislator. Nothing has come of this case since this leak.

In Summary

Despite only a handful of convictions, a multitude of cases remain in motion demonstrating a sustained campaign to infiltrate European democracies. Despite Russia dominating this space, clear evidence suggests China’s mimicry of Russian methods. The focus purely on the politicians themselves distracts from the various supporting staff that are just as prone to bribery and less likely to face scrutiny in the public gaze. Likewise, despite these acts of political espionage clearly appearing most often in the far-right of the political landscape, parties of the centre are clearly not free of Russian or Chinese compromise.

In a previous article, the history of Russian and Soviet campaigns to destroy western democracies through the funding of extremist political movements had been exposed.

This article highlights that it is possible to expose these acts of political vandalism. Despite this, the evidence of Russian interference in the Brexit campaign in the UK and the strengthening Orban's hand in Hungary, it is clear however that a great deal of damage is already done.

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