A Russian bank gave Marine LePen's party a €9.4m loan. Then things got weird - Polidicks

Title rewritten to fit the 80-character limit. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/a-russian-bank-gave-marine-le-pens-party-a-loan-then-weird-things-began-happening/2018/12/27/960c7906-d320-11e8-a275-81c671a50422_story.html When French politician Marine Le Pen needed cash for her far-right party, an obscure Russian bank agreed to help. Four years later, the bank has gone bust. The owner is facing a warrant for his arrest. Former Russian military officers are demanding money. And the party’s treasurer is sending off some $165,000 every few months to a woman in Moscow, unsure of where the payments ultimately will go. The money failed to deliver Le Pen the French presidency in last year’s election, denying the Kremlin a powerful ally in the heart of Europe. Instead, the 9.4 million-euro loan, then worth $12.2 million, dragged her party into the shadowy underworld of Russian cross-border finance, putting it in league with people accused of having ties to Russian organized crime, money laundering and military operations. It's almost like the international far right is being funded by Russia to disrupt the West from within.

I couldn't be less surprised.

Yeah not surprising, pretty much every major far-right action these past few years has had Putin written all over them.

The interesting thing that this story points out is how this plan may have unfolded without any direct input or supervision from Putin or direct Kremlin action. The story lays out how Putin issues the broad goal directive (say, destabilize the west), and then oligarchs and would-be oligarchs and rising stars execute covert plans to spread Russian influence abroad in hopes of impressing senpai as he rides by shirtless on his bear. There's no master plan, it's a whole bunch of minions throwing darts in the dark. Which is even more horrifing than a mastermind Soviet Union II: Social Media Boogaloo scenario.

"Wouldn't someone rid me of this meddlesome priest?"

Oh wonder oh wonder, the German AfD has ties to Russia as well. https://www.handelsblatt.com/today/politics/russian-collusion-russia-trip-exposes-afd-ties-to-moscow/23582296.html?ticket=ST-2872670-1Y6tZEJfqZcPfB1mavgc-ap1

Kremlin's Finnish propaganda arm (MV-Lehti) got kicked off Facebook some time ago, so now they're running their social media operations on fucking VK. Kremlin honestly needs to set up some training for these fuckwits so they're not this obvious, just throwing money at the operations doesn't seem to work.

Funny how we went from the communist party being the puppet of russia 60 years ago, to the far right parties doing the same thing now.

Classic, suddenly the debt will get forgotten about somewhere

Or let them expose themselves through their stupidity.

Christ Putin has made real life into a fucking conspiracy video game.

“The La-li-lu-le-lo? What are you talking about?”

As long their country's corrupted officials are there just for repeating history (and likely same thing over here in my country; the United States). Is their job is just do that, unfortunately.

Russian agents get funding from Russia, what a surprise.

Russia saw what the US was doing with far-right dictators in South America in the 20th century and decided to take a bite out of the same pie with Europe when their turn came.

Old men, running the world. A new age!

Brexit and UKIP financier Arron Banks is under criminal investigation for sourcing £8m from unknown sources. Might be another example https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjAkc2rwMffAhVC-YUKHex0D2sQzPwBegQIARAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fpolitics%2F2018%2Fnov%2F02%2Farron-banks-inquiry-why-is-8m-leaveeu-funding-under-review&psig=AOvVaw3o9Ks8gs25S37nK3GQNR7d&ust=1546257538139730

You know, this all reminds of that tweet from a woman who says something along the lines of "I'm proud of our international coalition of nationalists!" We used to make fun of it, but more and more, it's becoming obvious that there's an actual far-right conspiracy at play, primarily funded by Russia, that is trying to destabilise the Western world.

At least with communists, it somewhat made sense as their ideology supported international union of individuals over nationalism (bad fucking idea to take orders from a totalitarian hell like russia though). But far right nationalists are absolute hypocrites to take support from other powers to destabalise their own countries lol. The news that Le Pen had ties to Putin and took russian money actually hurt her party a lot from the inside and outside. I mean that shit should be illegal in the first place, foreign powers funding extremist parties to influence your countrys politics is absolutely unnaceptable.