Fidias Panagiotou: Journalist pins him to the wall - "You are conducting Russian propaganda"

In fact, Phidias Panayiotou is encountering the biggest reactions on the very social networking platforms that boosted his popularity and helped him launch his political career, being elected first in votes out of the six MEPs from Cyprus.

An interview he gave to journalist Caolan Robertson, who put a lot of pressure on him, has gone viral on Platform X.

Referring to the thousands of Ukrainian children allegedly kidnapped by Russia, the Cypriot MEP said that “maybe they want to stay” there, asking “How do you know that some children are not happy there?”, with the journalist responding in surprise: “But they have been kidnapped! How can they be happy? How could they want to stay there?”

“I’ve never heard such nonsense in my life, what the hell are you talking about?”, the journalist also said to him in a heated tone.

The journalist asked him repeatedly why he hadn’t visited Ukraine, while he had gone to Russia.

“I want to go,” Panagiotou replied. “You keep saying negative things about Ukraine and you haven’t been there,” the journalist insisted, and Phidias admitted that he was afraid to go.

Panagiotou also avoided assigning responsibility for war-related deaths in the interview, leading Caolan to describe him as “an asset of Russia” and the Cypriot MEP to become angry.

The journalist wrote, in fact, immediately afterwards:

“Fidias has been reinforcing the Kremlin’s absurd propaganda for months, so I confronted him.

He said that the abducted children of Ukraine are happy in Russia.

He refused to answer because he is lying. He got angry. This is the moment when the masks fall.”

Earlier this month, Panagiotou was one of only three MEPs to vote against a European Parliament resolution calling for the return of 20,000 children from Ukraine. After criticism, he appeared to change his vote to an abstention.

In another video, also circulating on social media, Phidias Panagiotou speaks to the European Parliament on May 7 and says that Europe’s “moral compass has broken,” citing the EU’s severing of diplomatic ties with Russia following sanctions over the war in Ukraine.

His comments provoked a heated response from German MEP Moritz Körner, who intervened with a series of pointed questions:

“Have you ever been to Ukraine? Have you visited it? Have you seen what’s happening there?”

Körner continued by saying: “Given your influence on social media, especially among young Europeans, it is your responsibility to see the reality for yourself, not to engage in “whataboutism” as you are doing in this speech. Talk to Ukrainians, understand what’s happening there, and then come and talk to us about the situation.”

A day later, the Cypriot TikToker-turned-politician was in Moscow with some of his fellow MEPs, on a visit that coincided with Russia’s “Victory Day” celebrations, which he said he did not attend.

“I went to Russia with five other [MEPs] because…we want to start some kind of diplomacy to end this war and because the European Union is not doing it,” Panagiotou later said.

The European Parliament later clarified that the MEPs were not making an official visit, but “traveled there in their personal capacity.”

In his intervention, Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides said he disagreed with the MEP’s visit. “I do not agree with what Phidias did. "He made a mistake by going to Moscow," he said, emphasizing, however, that MEPs are elected by the people and do not receive instructions from the government.