Russia has refined corruption into an instrument of state power, leveraging oligarchic capital, political party capture, and penetration of institutions to shape Europe’s security and policy choices from within. Recent cases in Austria and Germany, alongside incidents around multilateral bodies in Vienna, illustrate how influence operations and covert finance intersect with formal politics and the security sector, turning judicial capture and elite co-optation into strategic vulnerabilities for the EU.
This report maps the mechanisms of “strategic corruption” through case-led analysis, including Georgia and Ukraine, and sets out a practical agenda for European policymakers: reconfigure trade and investment away from adversarial dependencies, harden financial transparency and enforcement, and increase public-interest scrutiny through open beneficial-ownership data and support for investigative journalism. The authors combine narrative evidence with concrete recommendations to reduce Europe’s exposure to malign influence while strengthening democratic resilience.
