Kremlin Wants to Build Anti-Ukrainian Coalition of Far-Leftists and Far-Rightists in Germany – WP
Russia developed a strategy last year to build an "anti-war coalition" with far-right and far-left German parties – "Alternative für Deutschland" (AfD) and "Die Linke" to weaken support for Ukraine in Europe.
According to The Washington Post, referring to a trove of Russian documents, obtained by a European intelligence service, in July 2022, first Kremlin deputy chief of staff Sergei Kiriyenko assembled a group of Russian political strategists and told them that Germany was to become "the focus" of Moscow's efforts to undermine support for Ukraine in Europe.
The idea was to take advantage of the alleged contradiction between the national interests of Germany and the interests of the "overseas masters" – that is, to incline the country to search for the fastest possible end to the war in Ukraine.
According to the documents cited by WP, Russia wanted to discredit the European Union, the United States, Britain and NATO while convincing Germans they were being harmed by the sanctions imposed on Russia. The share of the German population in favour of improving relations with Russia, Kiriyenko demanded, was to be boosted by 10 percent within a three-month time frame, a later document shows.
In early September, in order to achieve this goal, Kremlin officials proposed to create an informal "anti-war" alliance with the participation of the far-right AfD and the far-left in Germany, which should win at least some elections and promote relevant messages from there.
"Inadequate politicians, unable to calculate the consequences of their decisions, have dragged Germany into conflict with Russia — a natural ally of our country and of our people. Our interests demand the restoration of normal partnership relations with Russia. Today in Germany there are only two parties: the party of enemies of Germany and the party of its friends," WP cites an example of such a message.
When 13,000 demonstrators gathered at the Brandenburg Gate in late to call for an end to weapons supplies to Ukraine, the protest was led by Sahra Wagenknecht, a member of parliament for Germany's far-left Die Linke party and a firebrand with national ambitions.
The document cited by The Washington Post, however, do not indicate any contacts between Kremlin officials and German radicals. But at least one associate of Wagenknecht and several AfD members admitted in an interview with WP that they had contact with Russian officials last year.