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.

  • DigitalTraveler42@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    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. 🤷‍♂️

    • NoSpiritAnimal@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      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.

    • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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      7 months ago

      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.

    • theneverfox@pawb.social
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      7 months ago

      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

      • DigitalTraveler42@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        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.