Pro-Kremlin media platform Voice of Europe has resumed operations from Kazakhstan after being expelled from the Czech Republic last month.

As bne IntelliNews reported at the start of April, a number of mostly far-right politicians across the EU member states have been promoted on the platform ahead of the European Parliament elections. Documents from the Czech security service BIS seen by Czech publications have borne that out. In late March, the Czech authorities added Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ally and Ukrainian-Russian oligarch, Viktor Medvedchuk, and his associate, Artyom Marchevskiy, to its national sanctions list for their activities linked to the then Prague-based Voice of Europe.  

Following Czech and Polish authorities’ revelations of a pro-Russian influence operation in Europe involving Medvedchuk, seen as a personal friend of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, and Voice of Europe, the website went offline. 

However, recent data reviewed by Euractiv shows that the website's IP address was updated on April 10, and it is now hosted on ghost.kz, a Kazakh cloud and website service. The site resumed on April 11.

The Czech Republic is advocating for Voice of Europe to be included on the EU sanctions list, alongside Russia Today and Sputnik, according to an EU diplomat who spoke to Euractiv.

Kazakhstan is seen as a favourable location for many Russian entities hoping to circumvent sanctions. The country has been previously criticised for playing a not insignificant role in Russia’s circumvention of sanctions on imports.   

In its reporting on the pro-Russian influence operation, Czech daily DennikN quoted from Czech security service documents, with one excerpt reading: “As per the instructions of Viktor Volodymyrovich Medvedchuk, [Artyom Marchevskiy] is practically running Voice of Europe in a number of EU member states, [the operation] secures financing of cooperation with journalists and covert financial support of chosen individuals among candidates to the European Parliament.”

Some of the politicians promoted in the scheme include Belgian separatist Filip Dewinter, European Parliament candidates from the German far-right party Alternative fur Deutschland Petr Bystron and Maximilian Krah, Dutch Thierry Baudet, Czech ex-cabinet members Cyril Svoboda and Jiri Paroubek, and Slovak legislator Erik Kalinak from Prime Minister Robert Fico’s ruling leftist populist Smer party.