Alternative for Germany (AfD) has become the leading party in voting intentions for Germans, reaching 26% in the latest polls, 1% more than the CDU, which currently leads the federal government. This is excellent news for the party led by Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla, but, barring a political catastrophe, the only way for the AfD to become a governing party in the near future would be to break the cordon sanitaire against it, and to do so, it would have to reach an understanding with the CDU, a possibility that Alice Weidel has publicly expressed her support for. However, there is one stumbling block that seems to make this possibility impossible: Russia.
In fact, in statements made to NTV just a few days ago, the head of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Jens Spahn, flatly rejected any possible collaboration with the AfD: “Unthinkable,” he said, “with this AfD, this party subordinate to Putin, which wants a weak Germany, which wants to extradite us to Russia (…), there will be no cooperation, no talks.”
This comes after Bundestag deputy Steffen Kotré, Saxony AfD state leader Jörg Urban, and MEP Hans Neuhoff traveled to the BRICS-Europe conference held in the Russian resort town of Sochi on the Black Sea, under the pretext of “building bridges for peace.” During the conference, Kotré spoke out in favor of buying Russian gas and oil again and opposed sending aid to Ukraine in an interview with the Russian media outlet Izvestia: “Something has to change. I will have to say no, there will be no more support. Humanitarian aid, yes, but no arms supplies or anything else.”
Weidel, who did everything she could to prevent the trip from taking place, criticized the MPs on Compact-TV: “As much as I can understand the motives of some MPs, they will not have a significant influence on the peace negotiations,” she said, pointing out that the AfD “is not even a governing party.” Interestingly, Neuhoff was the one who initiated proceedings to expel Tim Schramm, a young AfD politician who served as a volunteer in the Ukrainian army, from the party. Schramm’s defense of Ukraine, which he has continued to speak about since returning from the front, has ruffled feathers among the most ardent supporters of Russia, but it has also encouraged others to publicly defend him. For Schramm, the trip is an example of the double standards of some AfD members: “Neuhoff, who was the most vocal in pushing for my expulsion from the party, ignored our leader’s request and rushed off to Moscow. Fortunately, they canceled the meeting with Medvedev, a propagandist who occasionally threatens to raze Berlin again.”
To further complicate matters, Tino Chrupalla insisted in an interview that Russia “currently poses no danger to Germany,” while pointing out that Poland could “become a threat to Germany.” Unlike Russia, Poland has not threatened to destroy Germany with nuclear weapons, so Chrupalla’s statements have upset many people, both inside and outside Germany, but also within his own party.
An article in Junge Freiheit (JF) magazine entitled “Cold War in the AfD” reported on statements made by several AfD members of parliament about the trip to Russia and Chrupalla’s claims. Hannes Gnauck, a member of the Bundestag for Brandenburg, pointed out that “acts of sabotage, espionage, disinformation, cyberattacks, and also very risky and hostile activities in the Baltic region show how tense and volatile the current situation is.” Rüdiger Lucassen, from North Rhine-Westphalia, also stressed that, “as far as we know,” Russia is causing damage to critical German infrastructure, so “Germany must be able to defend itself against this threat.” Similarly, Hesse defense politician Jan Nolte said that Russia is using hybrid warfare against Germany, although he ruled out a military attack.
Supporting Chrupalla’s arguments, JF quotes Bundestag member Matthias Moosdorf from Saxony: “There is currently hysteria, but there is no threat.” Moosdorf, who last year accepted an honorary professorship at a music college in Moscow, has clearly positioned himself on X in favor of no more arms shipments to Ukraine, clarification of corruption allegations, and resuming business with Russia.
Regarding the MPs’ trip to Russia, JF reports two highly critical views. Rüdiger Lucassen demanded that contacts with Russia be left to the party and parliamentary group leaders: “Politics is not a playground where you can take pleasure trips and then brag about them on Facebook.” Meanwhile, Bavarian MP Rainer Kraft, known for his support for Ukraine, did not mince his words: “Of course, the MPs involved must ask themselves why, like many SPD bigwigs, they allow themselves to be used as instruments of foreign interests or celebrate the greatest ethnic cleansing in world history as a liberation.”
To resolve this issue, the party issued a brief statement from Chrupalla and Weidel: “As federal spokespersons for Alternative for Germany, we will continue to work together for Germany and its citizens (…) To this end, we maintain good relations with our European and international partners.” However, this is an issue that cannot be ignored in a context of hybrid threats and international tension. Of course, this debate, as the AfD believes, is of interest to its political opponents and the media, but that does not mean it is any less necessary, especially if the AfD wants to become a governing party one day.
According to polls, a clear two-thirds majority of the German population considers Russia a threat, and this figure has remained more or less stable since 2022. The increase in hybrid attacks by Russia against Germany is reinforcing this view, and since the Kremlin’s policy of aggression does not appear to be undergoing a 180-degree shift, the idea of some AfD politicians to return to pre-2022 relations is meaningless. At this point, it is important to highlight something that many media outlets too often forget: that the current situation is a consequence of the SPD and CDU’s rapprochement with Russia. Angela Merkel’s decision to close eight nuclear power plants in 2011 and to close all the others by 2022, led to Russia supplying more than 50% of Germany’s gas, feeding Putin’s regime and giving it strategic influence over Germany that was felt until the start of the large-scale invasion of Ukraine, when the state media was forced to radically change its approach to Russia.
Before Merkel, another former chancellor, Social Democrat Gerhard Schröder, became Putin’s man in Berlin. After officially leaving politics, Schröder joined the board of directors of the Russian company Gazprom. During his tenure, counterintelligence operations against Russia were suspended. The book Die Moskau-Connection. Das Schröder-Netzwerk und Deutschlands Weg in die Abhängigkeit (The Moscow Connection: The Schröder Network and Germany’s Path to Dependence) by German journalists Reinhard Bingener and Markus Wehner details the political-business network created by Schröder to favor Russian business and interests, to the detriment of Germany’s independence.
Stepan Rusyn, from the Transatlantic Dialogue Center in Berlin, believes that this debate within the AfD is a response to the aforementioned factors, voters’ perceptions, and the fact that Russia poses a threat to Germany’s long-term security. It is also a response to the belief that NATO membership and good relations with the US are more beneficial to German security than attempts to establish a special relationship with Russia: “In part, this is the result of the establishment of a special relationship with the MAGA wing of the Republican Party, which significantly weakened anti-American sentiment in the party, and also in part due to the steady rise in the AfD’s approval ratings throughout this year, which gives them hope that they will be able to form part of the government in the future. This creates a need to align with both Trump’s policy and the dominant foreign policy in Germany, which I think is positive.”
For Rainer Kraft, AfD member of parliament for Bavaria, it is impossible to ignore that, under Putin’s rule, Russia has distanced itself from the European sphere to become increasingly an authoritarian Asian despotism: “Russia is a prison of nations that has, throughout history, repeatedly brought immeasurable suffering upon Germany and its neighbouring countries and that is still actively attempting to harm our nation today. This is evident from the breach of contract regarding gas supplies, from acts of sabotage and espionage against German facilities, and from openly stated threats to attack civilian targets in Germany with nuclear weapons.” For this reason, from a European perspective, it is impossible to defend the so-called “multipolar” order, whose explicit goal is to weaken Europe, and especially Germany, for the benefit of China and Russia: “The mentalities of Europe and Russia are historically and culturally opposed; stable cooperation has repeatedly failed. Coexistence can only work if Europe is strong, sovereign, and capable of defending itself. That is the only language despotic regimes understand.”
On the contrary, Kraft believes that in order to defend Europe, we must defend Ukraine, “a deeply patriotic, culturally European, and Christian nation that is defending its state sovereignty with arms in hand,” and connected to Germany “by history, shared values, and geopolitical interests.” “In view of this reality, and aside from the programmatic clarity with which the AfD condemns Russian aggression, there arises a real-political necessity to further develop the position toward Russia. Security policy, European stability and the fundamental interests of Germany require a clear assessment. Russia is not a partner today and does not intend to be one,” Kraft concludes.
The future role of the AfD in German and European politics depends on the path the party takes at this crossroads. Ambiguity is never an option in the long term.
