The European Parliament announced today that it has launched an investigation into a Latvian MEP who, based on a report, has conducted espionage activities for the benefit of Moscow over the past two decades.

According to the Russian investigative website The Insider (based in Latvia), Tatyana Zhdanok, an independent MEP since 2004, began working with the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) the following year.

The politician “openly defended” Moscow’s positions, The Insider claims in a lengthy article, in which it publishes email exchanges between Zdanok and Russian agents, including “clear and detailed references to her work as an MEP”.

Those emails include “one-on-one meetings in Moscow or Brussels” and “requests for funding from Russian sources for her political activities,” according to the journalistic investigation done in cooperation with other media outlets, including an Estonian website and of the Swedish newspaper Expressen.

The president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metzola, “takes these allegations very seriously and has referred the matter to the Advisory Committee on the Code of Conduct, which means that investigations (within the institution) have been launched,” according to her spokesperson.

The case will also be included in the agenda of the meeting of the presidents of political groups tomorrow Wednesday.

“We note that these allegations have been made in (Tatiana Zdanok’s) country for some time,” while “all MEPs are subject to the same rules regarding independence of mandate or ethics,” the EP’s communication service added, without comment in detail.

In addition to the internal investigation opened by the institution, there is talk of possible procedures that the Latvian authorities could undertake in this matter.

Asked about the matter, the Kremlin spokesman was quick to defend Zhdanok, seeing the case as an anti-Russian witch hunt comparable to the McCarthyism of the 1950s in the US, when people suspected of collusion with the USSR were prosecuted.

“Remember McCarthyism in the US? How many people were arrested then, imprisoned because they were accused of having relations with communists or the KGB. The same thing is happening today,” Dmitry Peskov complained.

“We strongly condemn all this,” he said, judging the case to be against European “so-called democratic ideals.”

These suspicions of espionage come as the European Parliament was rocked in late 2022 by Qatargate, an alleged corruption scandal involving several MEPs who are suspected of acting in favor of Qatar and Morocco in exchange for financial rewards.