Thierry Baudet, the leader of the Dutch populist party Forum for Democracy (FvD), was ambushed and physically attacked by a man on Thursday evening in Ghent ahead of a planned lecture the politician was invited to give by a student group.
According to a report from the Belgian broadcaster VRT News, the attacker yelled at Baudet in Ukrainian before hitting him in the head with a folding umbrella. According to witness Ward Schouppe, the man also shouted “no to fascism, no to Putinism.”
Despite heavy security surrounding the event, the unidentified attacker waiting for Baudet at the entrance to the venue. After the attack, the perpetrator was immediately tackled to the ground, restrained, and arrested by police at the scene.
Baudet is said not to have been seriously injured as a result of the attack and was able to carry on and go ahead with the planned lecture, which was attended by around 300 people, including the founder of the right-wing activist group Schild & Vrienden, Dries Van Langenhove.
According to Nieuwsblad, Baudet’s lecture on the ‘downfall of Europe’ was refused twice by Ghent University because safety could not be guaranteed. But the Council of State ultimately ruled that the lecture could continue. There was a heavy police presence in the center of Ghent on Thursday, including a water cannon, due to a planned counter-demonstration. The police had cordoned off the street where the lecture was held. Baudet was also flanked by a bodyguard and there was a police presence at the entrance. None of the these security measures prevented the attack.
Footage of the attack was posted to X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, by Vlaams Belang politician Filip Dewinter who commented on the violence saying, “Police stand by and watch. How many times have we experienced this? After [an Islamic State] attack, yet another disgrace for our security services. Right-wing politicians are hunted game…”
Dewinter was likely referring to the Islamist terror attack that saw the fatal shooting of two Swedish nationals by Tunisian illegal immigrant Abdesalem Lassoued that took place earlier this month.
In the aftermath of the attack, after which Lassoued was fatally shot by Belgian police, it emerged that he was not only a known radical Islamist but had escaped a lengthy prison sentence in Tunisia and his home country had issued an extradition request to Belgium that had simply been lost by the Brussels prosecutor.
The scandal has already led to the resignation of Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne, while an investigation into the conduct of the Brussels prosecutor’s office has also been launched.
The attack on Baudet may simply be a lone wolf attack but his name does appear on one of Ukraine’s most notorious enemies lists, a website known as ‘Myrotvorets’ (Peacemaker).
Baudet’s views on Russia and Vladimir Putin are well-known, with the FvD leader telling the European Conservative in an interview earlier this year:
Regarding Putin—just to clarify my position on this—the West’s bombardment of Russia with all sorts of coercive economic measures since 2014 demonstrates the extent to which the West uses the global economic system as a weapon. It is entirely rational for a country aiming at a multipolar order to not want to be dependent on that very system. Moreover, if I ‘like’ Putin, it is because I admire his qualities as a statesman— his professionalism, patriotism, realism, and, above all, his very clear understanding of the moral and economic decadence of the West.
Describing Baudet as an “anti-Ukrainian propagandist” the authors of the enemies list write,
The Myrotvorets Center asks law enforcement agencies to consider this publication on the website as a statement that this citizen has committed deliberate acts against national security Ukraine, peace, security of mankind and international law and order, as well as other offences.
Myrotvorets is believed to be linked to the Ukrainian intelligence agency, the SBU, and has published home addresses of perceived enemies of the Ukrainian regime in the past, including publicist Oles Buzina and legislator Oleh Kalashnikov, who were both murdered just days after their addresses were published.
Ukrainian intelligence has also been accused of carrying out targeted violence, including assassinations of foreign nationals, since the start of the Russo-Ukraine war, such as the murder of Darya Dugina, the daughter of Russian political philosopher Aleksandr Dugin
The attack also follows an increase in violence against right-wing politicians in Europe, particularly in Germany where Alternative for Germany (AfD) co-leader Tino Chrupalla was attacked with a syringe during an election campaign in Bavaria earlier this month.
Initially, left-wing politicians, such as Thuringia president Bodo Ramelow, denied the attack had even taken place but doctors later confirmed that Chrupalla had been punctured by a needle with an unknown substance.
