According to a journalistic investigation, Latvian member of the European Parliament Tatiana Zhdanok cooperated with the Federal Security Service of Russia
According to a journalistic investigation, the Latvian member of the European Parliament, Tatiana Zhdanok, cooperated with the Federal Security Service of Russia, "FSB", - the independent Russian investigative online portal The Insider writes about this.
According to the publication, Zhdanok's cooperation with the Russian intelligence service began several decades ago, and since then he has had at least two contacts in the Russian special services.
As the Estonian Public Broadcaster notes, Zhdanok has been a member of the European Parliament since 2004 and is distinguished by his pro-Russian statements. He has consistently claimed that Estonia and Latvia persecute the Russian minority and criticized the decision to move the bronze monument to the soldier.
The Insider shared the information it obtained with the Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which consists of reporters from the Baltic states and Sweden. The portal got hold of electronic correspondence between Zhdanok and his acquaintance from FES, with whom he allegedly shared information about projects and plans. In at least one case, a Latvian MP asked for funding to organize an event to celebrate the victory of the Red Army.
As The Insider writes, two of Zhdanok's contacts were FBI intelligence officers. The name of one of them is Dmitri Gladeya, with whom cooperation began in 2004 and ended in 2013, when the MP started talking to Sergey Beltyukov.
Tatyana Zhdanok claims that she has met thousands of people and does not remember a person named Beltyukov. However, The Insider points out that the reason for this could be that the Russian special service employee used the name of Sergei Krasin as a pseudonym.
In addition, the MEP admits that he has known Gladei since the 1970s. However, he said, he did not know that Gladey was an intelligence officer.
It is clear from the electronic correspondence that Tatyana Zhdanok regularly met with Gladey in Europe and Moscow, although the purpose and topic of their private conversations are not mentioned in the letters. For example, in a letter dated September 8, 2007, sent by the lawmaker a week after the private meeting with Gladys, he apologized for not being able to send the "promised information" from Strasbourg, then listed the tasks he had been able to complete since June.