Russia's mysterious sabotage campaign

The Europeans | European news, politics and culture

Katy Lee and Dominic Kraemer

Society & Culture, News

4.8 • 274 Ratings

🗓️ 17 October 2024

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Arson, vandalism, attacks on NATO vehicles: around Europe, mysterious acts of sabotage have been multiplying. And there's a pattern: the perpetrators were recruited on Telegram via accounts linked to Russian agencies. This week, we hear from Marta Vunš about how she and other journalists went undercover to figure out how this recruitment actually works. We're also asking whether Germany's nausea-inducing opera deserves its scandalised headlines, and why France has been low-key obsessed with a treasure hunt for the past three decades. Thanks for listening! If you enjoy our podcast, we'd love it if you'd consider chipping in a few bucks a month at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/europeanspodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (many currencies are available). You can also help new listeners find the show by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠leaving us a review⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or giving us five stars on Spotify. "‘Make a Molotov Cocktail’: How Europeans Are Recruited Through Telegram to Commit Sabotage, Arson, and Murder". You can read the investigation by Delfi, Der Standard, Paper Trail Media and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project here. This week's Inspiration Station offering, sponsored by the European Cultural Foundation: Liquid Becomings. Other resources for this episode: Trailer: SANCTA | Staatsoper Stuttgart Talk Eastern Europe: Spies, sabotage and Russia-West relations 00:22 The week EU politics got spicy03:22 Bad Week: Unwell opera-goers13:54 Good Week: France's mystery treasure-hunt winner24:38 Interview: Marta Vunš on Russia's shady Telegram recruitment38:46 The Inspiration Station - The European Cultural Foundation presents: Liquid Becomings42:45 Happy Ending: Phew! Art saved from the garbage can Producers: Morgan Childs and Wojciech Oleksiak Mixing and mastering: Wojciech OleksiakMusic: Jim Barne and Mariska Martina Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Threads⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Mastodon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the Europeans, a podcast about the crazy, confusing and sometimes concerning news from this cornucopia of a continent.
0:32.7	I feel like using a fancy word today.
0:35.0	Good summary.
0:35.7	I'm Dominic Kramer, one of your hosts speaking to you from
0:38.8	Amsterdam and down the line, there's a Katie Lee in Paris. There is a Katie Lee in Paris. How are you,
0:43.6	Dominic, in Amsterdam? I'm fine. I think I'm better than you. I'm very sick. Do you know what's
0:47.9	been making me feel better, though? What? I spent a good chunk of the past week transfixed by the goings-on in the European Parliament, which
0:55.7	sounds improbable, but it's true. Can we talk about how spicy EU politics suddenly got this week?
1:00.5	Right. It's so rare that like viral clips of speeches at the European Parliament end up
1:06.4	on my feed and that friends are sending me clips of things that a member of the European
1:09.7	Parliament said. But it actually happened, which yeah, I'm still getting over, to be honest.
1:14.8	If you don't know what we're talking about, Victor Orban, the Hungarian Prime Minister,
1:18.6	showed up in the European Parliament last week to give a big speech because Hungary currently
1:22.5	holds the EU presidency. And after that speech, there was a debate during which
1:27.0	politician after politician
1:28.9	slammed Orban, like calling him out for everything he has done to dismantle democracy in Hungary,
1:35.3	trampling on LGBTQ rights, trampling on migrant rights. At one point, some politicians from the left
1:40.2	started singing Bella Chow, this famous Italian song of anti-fascist resistance.
1:49.0	This is not the Eurovision, eh?
1:54.0	I should say there was also quite a lot of clapping for Orban from the far-right members of parliament
1:58.0	who are fairly strong in numbers these days.
2:03.2	But it was just really the kind of politics that you want to watch with popcorn
	...

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