Image: kremlin.ru
For years, the German Hubert Seipel played the role of investigative journalist, populist influencer and amateur diplomat, scoring the first interview with Edward Snowden and getting exclusive access to Wladimir Putin when nobody else could. His whole template reminds us of Tucker Carlson.
He received the highest German awards for his books and television reports. But that money was never enough.
German and international media outlets finally obtained data sets from Cyprus, where many Russian business transactions take place. The documents included a €600,000 “sponsorship agreement” between Seipel and the Russian oligarch Alexei Mordashov, via a shell company. A handwritten note on Seipel’s contract suggests a similar agreement from 2013 for his Putin biography.
Seipel had previously reacted indignantly to the question of whether he received money from Russia: It was a perfectly legitimate question, which Seipel interpreted as a nasty attack on his honor and integrity.
Seipel admitted he received “support” from Mordashov, but claims it had no influence on the content of his work.
Seipel studied at the University of Marburg and then at the London School of Economics. Both institutions trace their origins back to the same aristocratic circles, with the LSE being conceived by the British colonial empire as a tool to give imperialism a more modern, left-leaning image. Britain is also heavily infiltrated by Russian espionage. After 1991, the KGB channeled enormous sums of money into the City of London.
Seipel then went to work for the German state broadcaster in the aristocratic stronghold of Hesse and also contributed to Stern, Spiegel, NDR, and WDR. He marketed himself as a great whistleblower with reports on the Flick Affair, corruption at Volkswagen, and Hypo Real Estate.
Seipel was granted the world’s first TV interview with Edward Snowden and was allowed to get very close to Putin.
Focus magazine complained about Seipel:
Direct access to the president is reserved for court reporters or flown-in star journalists who know as much about Russia as Vladimir Putin does about Schuhplattler (a traditional Bavarian folk dance) and therefore have to refrain from any potentially dangerous move or question.
Shortly before the war in Ukraine, Seipel’s “Putin’s Power: Why Europe Needs Russia” was published by Hoffmann & Campe. The title alone speaks volumes. It trots out clichéd talking points:
“A united Europe will not be possible without Russia – not only because the country is the world’s largest nuclear power, but also because Moscow is part of European history (…)”
The oligarch Alexei Mordashov, who allegedly orchestrated the payments to Seipel, first studied in Leningrad and then at Northumbria University in Britain, which dates back to King George V. This parallel to the two universities Seipel attended is easily overlooked. The king reigned during Russia’s transition from the rule of the related tsars from the Houses of Hesse and Denmark to Soviet communism. Lord Louis Mountbatten was suspected of being close to the Soviets.
The oligarch Mordashov enjoyed a meteoric rise. In the US, he invested in steel companies and even received a loan from the US Department of Energy. Up to $3 billion flowed into steel plants in Dearborn and Columbus.
