AfD boss Tino Chrupalla has rejected a Washington Post report that Russia wants to weaken German solidarity with Ukraine by influencing the AfD. He had “never heard of such alleged plans,” Chrupalla told the T-Online portal. He spoke of a “robber’s pistol that serves to discredit the peace movement”.
The Washington Post reports on documents from the Kremlin dating from July to November 2022. They are said to document meetings between Kremlin officials and Russian strategists aimed at creating anti-war sentiment in Germany and weakening support for Ukraine. However, the documents do not contain any indication that there was direct contact between the Russian strategists and German politicians.
According to the report, Moscow is striving for an alliance between the German right and the camp around the left-wing politician Sahra Wagenknecht. After that, the AfD should be reorganized and its popularity increased, according to the US newspaper. The aim of a new political force in Germany that Moscow is striving for should be to win majorities in elections. The AfD should become part of a new party of “German unity”, which, among other things, should reject the sanctions against Russia.
Wagenknecht told the Washington Post that there would be no cooperation or alliance with the AfD on your part. She also had no contact with representatives of the Russian state, according to the left-wing politician.
Linke Federal Managing Director Tobias Bank emphasized that his party had always strongly condemned Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, which violates international law. “And we have always said that ‘never again war’ and ‘never again fascism’ belong together for us,” Bank said to the newspapers of the Funke media group. However, Bank does not belong to the camp around Wagenknecht in his party anyway.
