Moscow think tank: “Putin: the new leader of international conservatism”

The paper spelled out how the Russian President could influence EU countries including Germany – the country’s pivotal European trading partner.

The Kremlin is also suspected of being behind a Russian-sponsored “peace summit” designed to explain Moscow’s current stance in Ukraine. The summit was held at a luxury hotel in Berlin last weekend, and attended by two members of the neo-Nazi NPD, Mr Gauland and the veteran SPD German detente politician Egon Bahr, in a gesture that embarrassed the SPD leadership.

The peace summit’s star guest was 66-year-old Vladimir Jakunin, the homophobic head of Russia’s rail network, who is a close associate of Mr Putin and one of the few Russians in Moscow’s inner circle who are not on a sanctions list and therefore still able to visit the European Union.

The nominal organiser of the peace summit was the German magazine Compact, which is run by a pro-Kremlin journalist. Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper described the publication as a “right-wing populist magazine with a conspiracy theory bent”. The summit was billed as “the most important summit of the year – peace with Russia”.

Earlier this month Moscow also launched a German version of the pro-Kremlin TV news channel Russia Today. The broadcaster has since been criticised in the German media for using journalists with far-right views. One of them was recently sacked from the German public channel RBB for making anti-Semitic remarks.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/putins-farright-ambition-thinktank-reveals-how-russian-president-is-wooing--and-funding--populist-parties-across-europe-to-gain-influence-in-the-eu-9883052.html