We continue our column in which we introduce you to Russian agents in Europe. Today we will talk about Sonja van den Ende. Sonia calls herself an independent journalist and columnist. But in fact she is a pro-Russian conspiracy theorist. She was recruited to report on Ukraine by Alexander Dugin (a Russian political philosopher and strategist, known for views widely characterized as fascist) through his Euroasia organization in March, 2022.
War in Syria
In general, there is not much information about our person in the public space. As writes researcher of social media, algorithms & disinformation at Tampere University Pekka Kallioniemi, before the invasion, Sonja van den Ende was reporting from Syria, and even claimed to be related to the al-Assad family through her now-ex husband. She has accused the US and Israel of mass murder in Syria, and has praised Putin for his help in “defending the Syrian people”.
Van den Ende has spread conspiracy theories about the Syrian volunteer group the White Helmets, and she was also (naturally) involved in various COVID-19 and WEF related conspiracies.
Russian occupation of Donbass
In 2017 she visited Ukraine by the invitation of Russian propaganda group Global Rights of Peaceful People (who comes up with these ridiculous names?). She has also protested against the official MH17 investigation.
Sonja was also one of the “foreign observers” in the sham vote for the annexation of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson. Russia accepted anyone who’d come to “observe the legality of the vote”, and Sonja was of course one of the volunteers.
Together with the other usual suspects such as Alina Lipp & Eva Bartlett, Sonja attended the international conference “Evidence of mass war crimes of the armed forces & national units of Ukraine”, which is basically a Kremlin-organized propaganda event defaming Ukrainians.
Russian full-scale war in Ukraine
So far van den Ende has refuted Russian attacks on Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and Mariupol hospital. She’s also denied any Russian wrongdoing in Bucha, and blamed the Ukrainians for Olenivka prison massacre.
She has contributed to GRU-owned disinformation mills InfoRos and Oneworld. She also has her own column in the Prigozhin-owned RiaFan. Some of her works include a made-up story of a Dutch woman harvesting organs from Ukrainian soldiers and sending them to countries such as Israel and Germany.
Van den Ende has stated that she can’t go back to the Netherlands because she’d be arrested. As of today, there are no ongoing investigations on her activities, and no sanctions have been imposed on her. But it is a matter of time. After all, sooner or later everyone who supports the Kremlin’s terrorist actions in Ukraine will be brought to justice.
