For many in the European Parliament, the accusation that Latvian MEP Tatjana Ždanoka has worked with Russian intelligence since 2004 was not a great surprise when it was reported this week.
She was investigated by Latvian authorities on suspicion of being an agent of Russian influence in 2014, the year her small Latvian Russian Union party signed a co-operation agreement with the man just installed as “prime minister” of the newly Russian-annexed Crimea in Ukraine.
Then, as now, Ždanoka denied the allegations. But she was a fringe figure in the parliament: someone who had opposed Latvia’s independence from the Soviet Union and reliably championed viewpoints sympathetic to the Kremlin. Most MEPs kept their distance.
Two MEPs who didn’t were Ireland’s left independent MEPs Clare Daly and Mick Wallace.
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MEPs meet lots of people and go on many trips. Ždanoka was even in Ireland in October on a “fact finding” mission about mica blocks, along with Fine Gael’s Colm Markey and Maria Walsh, Independent Luke Ming Flanagan and Sinn Féin’s Chris MacManus.
What’s unusual about the joint activities of Ždanoka with Wallace and Daly, however, is that there were five in 15 months and, in most, Wallace and Daly were the only other MEPs to take part. The events concerned the supposed persecution of Russian speakers and pro-Russian figures in bordering states, a pet issue of Ždanoka’s and of the Russian foreign ministry, and part of Moscow’s justification for the invasion of Ukraine. The events took place in the build-up to and immediate aftermath of that invasion.
[ How Clare Daly and Mick Wallace became stars of authoritarian state mediaOpens in new window ]
Almost all concerned Algirdas Paleckis, a Lithuanian former politician and diplomat who was convicted of spying for Russia.
According to Lithuania’s public broadcaster, Paleckis’s quick repayment of a mortgage aroused suspicions and, following an investigation, he was convicted of being paid to pass information to Russian intelligence after a co-accused businessman turned witness.
To many Lithuanians, it was an unremarkable incident against a backdrop of menace and interference from their large former imperial neighbour. But Russia’s ministry of foreign affairs saw it differently, describing Paleckis as an opposition politician “persecuted by Lithuanian authorities” in 2021.
In September that year, Ždanoka hosted an online conference about Paleckis and the broader “persecution of dissenters in the Baltic countries”. According to a recording still hosted on Paleckis’s YouTube channel, Ždanoka welcomed participants before handing over to Wallace and Daly to give introductory remarks.
“We don’t know an awful lot about what’s been going on, obviously Tatjana’s been filling us in a bit,” Wallace began. “We’re very keen tonight to hear what all the contributors have to say so that we’re better informed.”
The contributors, who included Paleckis himself, must have been convincing, because seven weeks later Wallace and Daly travelled to Lithuania to take part in a rally in support of him.
Ždanoka, Wallace and Daly addressed the crowd of a few dozen people. “Your fight is our fight,” Daly told them, promising to raise awareness. She posted about the case on social media, and Wallace would later tell the European Parliament that the Paleckis case puts “shame on the European Union”.
Eight days before the invasion of Ukraine, Ždanoka, Wallace and Daly put on T-shirts reading “stop killing Donbass children” and posed for photographs that the Latvian MEP published on Facebook. This obscure slogan is instantly recognisable to Ukrainians as part of Russia’s justification for its invasion – ie to protect children.
That invasion did not alter Daly and Wallace’s approach to activities with Ždanoka about the Paleckis case. They returned to Lithuania twice more. In March 2022, they stood alongside Ždanoka and Paleckis outside court to criticise the conduct of the trial. In December 2022, the three visited Paleckis in prison.
Each visit was announced as news by Ždanoka’s Latvian Russian Union party and they often got Russian-language media coverage. Declarations by Wallace and Daly scorning the EU’s “authoritarian” turn featured heavily in a report about their trip to the prison by the Russian state-owned media organisation, Sputnik.
[ Fear and suspicion stalk Russian speakers in LatviaOpens in new window ]
This week, Russian independent media outlet The Insider published emails that appear to show Ždanoka recounting her activities as an MEP to agents in Russia’s FSB intelligence service.
In one, she describes organising a public hearing in the European Parliament about the mistreatment of pro-Russian protesters in Estonia. In another, she requests funding for an event marking the Red Army’s victory in 1945.
The European Parliament has now opened an investigation into Ždanoka and her activities. Hot on the heels of the Qatargate affair, the institution is once again facing a scandal over alleged overseas influence within its chamber.