Where to Look for Covert Russian Influence in the West
He has his ways.
Photographer: MICHAEL ECKELS/AFP/Getty ImagesStories of shady Russian influence abounded during the U.S. election campaign, but the evidence in them was often sketchy and the eventual benefits to Russia questionable. The European Union, for its part, is dealing with a scandal in which both the Russian connection and the gain for the Kremlin are far less nebulous.
On May 18, EU Commissioner Guenther Oettinger -- the German representative on the European Commission and a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU party -- flew from Brussels to Budapest to attend a conference on the "car of the future." He made the flight on the private jet of Klaus Mangold, a businessman who served on the management board of Daimler and who, more importantly, ran the Eastern Committee of the German Economy between 2000 and 2010. The Committee is a lobby group for German companies doing business in the former Soviet Union.