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Putin’s Strategy is Divide and Conquer by James Nadeau Monday July 20 th , 2015 at 2:18 PM U.S. National Security And Military News Review 1 Share Russia’s support for far-right parties in Europe is part of a pragmatic, long-term strategy to fragment and weaken the European Union. Putin can condemn “fascists” in Ukraine and applaud far-right European parties in the same breath because, for the Kremlin, anything that undermines a united Europe is a good thing. Since Stalin, Russia’s foreign policy has been more pragmatic than ideological. Right and left make no difference: Putin’s goal is to sow dissent and discord within Europe’s ranks and erode the unity of the EU. The exact scale of Russian support to far-right European parties is unknown. In 2014, France’s National Front — the Eurosceptic, anti-immigrant party led by Marine Le Pen — received a $10 million loan from the First Czech Russian Bank, an institution run by an oligarch close to