President Miloš Zeman of the Czech Republic is in the pockets of Russian intelligence that exploits bribery and communicates through Russian business companies.
Since at least 2005, Russia has exploited government monopolies to corrupt foreign politicians, and to sponsor missions of influence abroad. They are in contacts with intelligence targets through the agents acquired by Russian intelligence in Soviet times or in the 1990s.
Colonel Zdeněk Zbytek, Czechoslovakia army officer, recruited by Soviet military intelligence, is a key player for the Miloš Zeman case. He is the Soviet General Staff Academy graduate, and currently heads Russia Club of the Russian Embassy. He’s got business interests in Russia, sells alcohol that he buys in Moldova. He established the business under Russian-minded President Vladimir Voronin of Moldova.
Zeman got corrupted by the Russians after Vladimir Yakunin, Russian Railways head then, closed in on Zeman via Zdeněk Zbytek.
Vladimir Yakunin was the Russian Railways board chairman from 2005 to 2015. He graduated from the Soviet KGB Institute, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Academy now, he is affiliated with Russia’s Foreign Intelligence. Yakunin was a technical intelligence officer for the Russian mission to the UN in New York for five years.
Yakunin, via his wife, runs the Dialogue of Civilizations fund, used to recruit and corrupt foreign officials, and to stage the missions of influence. Yakunin’s son Andrey, who lives in London, runs the fund management. The foundation sponsored Miloš Zeman ‘s birthday celebration on the island of Rhodes. Russian Railways, consequently, got a $250 million contract in the Czech Republic.
Yakunin’s affiliation with intelligence was proved later by the fact that in 2019, Veronika Naryshkina, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence head Sergei Naryshkin’s daughter, became a co-owner for the Agro-Alliance Holding, one of the largest cereal producers in Russia, owned by Vladimir Yakunin’s son Andrey and his partners until 2015.
The Dialogue of Civilizations foundation, affiliated with Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, was co-founded by Walter Schwimmer, the conservative Austrian politician and ex-Secretary General for the Council of Europe, and Peter Schulze, German political scientist from Göttingen, who headed the Russian office of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in 1992-2003, close to the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). From 2010 to 2013, Schwimmer was the president of private Megatrend University in Serbia that awarded a doctorate to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2007. The university had a bad record in Serbia for accusations of selling diplomas.
The fund is sponsored by Yakunin and Ruben Vardanyan, Russian businessman. The fund’s supervisory board comprises Vaclav Klaus, ex-Czech President who is thought to be a friend of Putin, and Alfred Gusenbauer, ex-Austrian Chancellor who is involved in the Paul Manafort case and has ties to the Kremlin as well.
Yakunin integrated Russian Railways in the system that ensures operational cover for Russian intelligence.
In Greece, e.g., Moscow is seeking control of the strategic port of Thessaloniki, by means of Russian Railways, through the intelligence and the business affiliated with it.
Russian Railways was also involved in another mission by Russian intelligence, when Thierry Mariani, a French politician, was introduced to Irina Chaikhoullina, a native of Yekaterinburg, at an event hosted by Russian Railways. She was the reason for 48-year-old Thierry Mariani to leave his French wife and children and to marry this Russian woman in 2006, who was not just granted French citizenship, as a result, but also entered Nicolas Sarkozy campaign headquarters in 2007, where she run Nicolas Sarkozy TV Internet channel.
Mariani himself, together with the ex-head of Russian Railways Vladimir Yakunin, are the heads for the Franco-Russian Dialogue association, starting from 2012. In July 2015, the association sponsored the trip for nine French politicians (seven of them are Mariani’s party members) to the Crimea annexed by Russia in order to legalize the seizure of the peninsula.
LUKoil is the second Russian company that takes part and sponsors the missions by Russian intelligence.
Two representatives of the Russian oil company LUKoil, Martin Nejedly and Pavel Galuška are Zeman’s official advisers. Nejedly is also the 1st deputy of the political party Strana Práv Občanů ZEMANOVCI (SPOZ), the leftist party by President Zeman. In the late 1990s, he worked for Plynostav Pardubice, a company that built oil infrastructure, including for Gazprom.
Both Zeman’s advisors are tied to Ukoil Aviation Czech that won a seven-year contract to supply aviation fuel to CSA at Prague airport. The company got another 270 million koruna contract later – to replace aviation fuel for the State ReserveBureau. The company was accused of not supplying fuel for material reserves.
Nejedly also lobbied Russian Rosatom to build reactors for Czech nuclear power plants.
