Verbatim report of proceedings

Wednesday, 10 April 2024 - Brussels

New allegations of Russian interference in the European Parliament, in the upcoming EU elections and the impact on the Union (debate)

  Andrius Kubilius (PPE). – Mr President, dear colleagues, Russia is threatening to occupy our territories by military means, and Russia is trying to occupy the hearts and minds of our people by hybrid means. They are attacking the hearts and minds of people in Germany and in Spain, in Lithuania and in Poland, in Georgia and in Moldova.

We need to empower our people to defend themselves and to make conscious political decisions not to vote for Kremlin hybrid agents. The question always will be how to recognise who is the hybrid agent of the Kremlin. There is a very simple method to have such an answer: the so-called duck test. If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.

We can introduce very simple criteria for a Kremlin duck test to recognise that somebody probably is not a duck, but a Kremlin hybrid agent. If a politician or political party suggests not to give Ukraine weapons and says that it will help to achieve peace, if the party introduces foreign agent laws, if the government declares the LGBT community an extremist organisation, if the government puts political opponents into prison, if the party gets financial support from the Kremlin or is financed by local oligarchs with business ties to Kremlin, those politicians, political parties or governments most probably are Kremlin agents.

We should ask the European Parliament’s Research Service to start to produce a special regular Russia Hybrid Influence Index based on those criteria, in order to help European citizens to understand for what kind of Kremlin hybrid agents they are going to vote.