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News from the NOS••Modified
Former Senate President René van der Linden (CDA) has been a representative of the Kremlin’s interests for many years, writes NRC. It was deployed by Russia to influence Western public opinion and Western politicians, the newspaper concludes on the basis of documents and emails.
At the expense of Russia, Van der Linden, who was Secretary of State for European Affairs, Member of Parliament and CDA Senator, traveled across Europe and sought to limit EU sanctions against Moscow, according to NRC. He also allegedly had close ties to a Russian spy and met in Vienna with a far-right Russian politician, who was on the EU sanctions list at the time.
‘Intercepted by the AIVD’
De Volkskrant today he also writes about Van der Linden, 78 years old. It would have been observed and intercepted in 2019 by the AIVD secret services. In that year he would receive a warning from the Netherlands for his contacts with Russia, as for the Russian spy Valeri Levitski. According to the newspaper, he organized, for example, congress trips to Moscow.
The board member tells the NOS that he will not respond to publications tonight. There is a rebuttal in both papers. Van der Linden said he did not know until mid-2019 that his contact person worked for the Russian intelligence services.
“The moment I felt Levitski was a spy, something clicked inside of me. I said: now it’s over,” Van der Linden told NRC. He would find it “very resentful and reprehensible” if the Dutch intelligence services had known for some time that Levitski was a spy, but hadn’t said it before.
When I look back on what Putin did, he couldn’t be more evil.
In his own words, the Dutchman pursued an open dialogue between East and West. She confirms to reporters that Moscow reimbursed the expenses for air travel, accommodation and sometimes dinner when he came to Russia. Incidentally, the publications do not discuss Van der Linden’s criminal acts.
Meeting in Vienna
The two articles also claim that the politician met with far-right Russian politician Leonid Slutsky in a hotel room in Vienna. At that time, in 2018, this person was on the European sanctions list.
During that time, Van der Linden was a member of the CDA’s foreign affairs committee. The visit with the controversial Slutsky was morally questionable, but not against the rules, an international law professor told NRC.
Van der Linden initially denied the meeting, according to the newspaper. But after being confronted with the evidence, he retracted this denial. “I won’t say I haven’t been there, but if you ask me, what is it? I don’t know anymore.”
Contacts between Van der Linden on the one hand and the Russian spy Levitsky and the politician Slutsky on the other had already been reported in September. They were mentioned in a report by Dossier Center, a website of Putin critic and oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky. This publication prompted the NRC and de Volkskrant investigation.
“Nonsense that I would have been a delivery boy”
Van der Linden called it nonsense in September that he would be a “Russian delivery boy”. “They can’t provide a single piece of evidence for that,” he told De Limburger.
Van der Linden now tells NRC that he is disappointed with the results of his efforts to improve relations between Russia and Europe. “Looking back on what Putin did, he couldn’t be more evil. It must have been, I would almost say, in the genes.”
