LONDON (Reuters) – Two pro-Russian activists in Germany, whose links to the Kremlin were exposed by a Reuters investigation last year, have left Germany to settle in Russia, the lawyer said on Monday of the couple in a press release.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Elena Kolbasnikova and her partner Max Schlund have been active in Germany, organizing pro-Kremlin rallies to urge Berlin to abandon its military support for kyiv.
Last year’s Reuters investigation identified them as one of the main individuals promoting a pro-Moscow position in Germany and found that they had received financial assistance from a Russian government agency.
The couple’s home in northwest Germany was raided last August by German prosecutors following a Reuters report that funds raised from supporters in Germany had been used to buy walkie-talkies, headphones and telephones for a division of the Russian army fighting in Ukraine.
Markus Beisicht, their lawyer, said the two men had left Germany and were currently in the Russian city of Kaliningrad.
The two men lost their jobs, were evicted from their apartment and were the subject of “countless” criminal investigations in Germany, Beisicht said in a statement shared on the Telegram channel of the right-wing political party he represents .
“They say they can no longer live in Germany as Russian citizens because of severe Russophobia,” Beisicht said. German criminal proceedings against the two men are ongoing, but the couple believe they have respected the law, he added.
German prosecutors did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In a June 2 post on their joint Telegram channel, Schlund and Kolbasnikova posed for the camera and looked forward to moving to Russia.
They said that in Russia, gender roles were clearly defined, homosexuality was not encouraged and it was possible to eat an affordable meal in restaurants. “What do you have left, poor Europe?” says their message.
(Reporting by Mari Saito; editing by Christian Lowe and Gareth Jones)
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