Protagonists of the “Voice of Europe” scandal are doing a propaganda show in Belarus. The guest list is strange: Russian agents, scandal-prone politicians – and again and again AfD MPs.
Oleg Voloshin is a talk show guest with as eventful a resume as a presenter could wish for for an interesting political program. He is a long-time confidant and lobbyist of the Putin-loyal oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk. Both are suspected of treason in Ukraine. And his work for Medvedchuk has also gotten him into trouble beyond the country’s borders.
The USA considers Voloshin to be a pawn of the Russian secret service FSB. Before Russia’s attack, he was supposed to destabilize the country and prepare a puppet government – Medvedchuk was rumored to be the new president. In the European Union, Voloshin is embroiled in an espionage scandal and a bribery scandal that has affected the AfD because of his lobbying work.
So there would be many things to discuss with such a guest in front of the camera. After all, he and his wife Nadia Sass are said to have initiated contacts with European politicians, who are then said to have been bribed with money via Medvedchuk’s Internet portal “Voice of Europe”. To do this, they probably used their positions in Medvedchuk’s media projects, among other things.
It is all the more surprising that Voloshin is actually a regular guest in a TV studio – in dictatorial Belarus, where he and his wife Sass sought protection from law enforcement. What is less surprising, however, is how the permanent presence on state television comes about: Sass is herself the presenter of the weekly propaganda show, which can hardly be distinguished from its Russian counterparts.
There she not only regularly greets Medvedchuk’s political colleagues from Russia and Ukraine via video link, but also numerous European politicians who have come within reach of his network – including AfD MPs and many who appeared on “Voice of Europe”. The guest list therefore seems strange.
An analysis by t-online shows that Medvedchuk’s confidants’ propaganda show contains a surprising number of affairs that have alarmed European security circles. The connections to “Voice of Europe” particularly stand out.
In addition to Woloshin and Sass, the program cannot be imagined without the former AfD member of the Bundestag Waldemar Herdtwho welcomed Medvedchuk to the Bundestag at the beginning of 2021 with his party friends Maximilian Krah and Petr Bystron. Since Sass went on air in mid-September 2022, he has enriched the show 19 times, more often than almost anyone.
He already appeared in the second issue – together with former AfD member of the Bundestag Robby Schlund, who was once responsible for the AfD faction’s Russia policy and laid a wreath with Medvedchuk in Berlin. Both are no longer in the party. Since leaving at the beginning of 2024, Herdt has intensified his work for the Russian state, as t-online reported.
The AfD MEP was also very early Maximilian Krah a guest of Voloshin’s wife. As early as December 2022, he debated live in the EU Parliament in Strasbourg with Sass and other MPs. Also there: Tatjana Zdanoka, who is now being investigated in Latvia for decades of alleged espionage for Russia.
But his talk show appearance in December 2022 is doubly sensitive because nine months later, “Voice of Europe” broadcast an almost identical broadcast format, also with Krah live from Strasbourg. Sass used excerpts from this again and again.