CDA member René van der Linden was the Kremlin’s pawn for years

Former Senate President René van der Linden (CDA) was for many years a representative of Kremlin interests, writes the NRC. He was deployed by Russia to influence Western opinion and Western politicians, the newspaper concludes based on documents and emails.

At Russia’s expense, Van der Linden, who served as state secretary for European affairs, deputy and CDA senator, traveled across Europe and tried to limit EU sanctions against Moscow, according to the NRC. He also reportedly had close ties to a Russian spy and met a far-right Russian politician in Vienna, who was on the EU sanctions list at the time.

From Volkskrant also writes today about Van der Linden, 78. He was reportedly observed and intercepted in 2019 by the AIVD intelligence service. That year, he reportedly received a warning from the Netherlands for his Russian contacts, such as for Russian spy Valery Levitsky. According to the newspaper, he organized, for example, trips to congresses in Moscow.

The CDA member tells the NOS that he will not be responding to posts tonight. There is a rebuttal in both newspapers. Van der Linden said he only learned in mid-2019 that his interlocutor worked for Russian intelligence.

“The moment I heard that Levitski was a spy, something snapped inside 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 had not said so before.

In his own words, the Dutchman continued an open dialogue between East and West. He confirms to reporters that Moscow reimbursed his air travel, accommodation and sometimes dinner expenses when he came to Russia. Incidentally, the publications do not deal with any criminal acts of Van der Linden.

Both articles also state that the politician met 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 this period, 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 encounter, according to the newspaper. But after being confronted with evidence, he went back on this denial. “I won’t say I didn’t go, but if you ask me, what was it? I wouldn’t know.”

Contacts between Van der Linden on the one hand and Russian spy Levitsky and politician Slutsky on the other were reported as early as September. They were mentioned in a report by Dossier Center, a website by Putin critic and oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky. This publication triggered an investigation by the NRC and Volkskrant.

Van der Linden called it absurd in September that he was allegedly a “Russian errand boy.” “They can’t provide any evidence for that either,” he told De Limburger.

Van der Linden now tells the NRC that he is disappointed with the results of his efforts to improve relations between Russia and Europe. “Looking at what Putin did, it couldn’t be worse. It had to be, I would almost say, in the genes.”