Amid the debacle of Russia-led intervention in Ukraine and destabilisation in Russia, the Kremlin has urged its spies in Western Europe to carry out information and psychological ops seeking to cover up new war crimes committed by the Russians in the Kharkiv region, Ukraine, to discredit Ukraine and its allies, and to stop military aid.Moscow believes Germany is the most susceptible to its influence, due to the economic ties between the Russians and the German elite, and due to some politicians, actively exploited by Russian intelligence. The AfD party members are the most active ones who lobby Russia’s interests. In December 2019, RLI covered the effort by Ulrich Oehme, AfD member, to legitimize Russian proxy regimes in Donbas.
The AfD was labelled as “needs checking” back in early 2019, as the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, and the Administrations at the Lands of North Rhine-Westphalia, Baden-Württemberg, Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Saxony, Thuringia, Bremen and Lower Saxony sought to verify the AfD land offices.
With Germany denying the link between the AfD and the Russians back in 2017, on January 15, 2022, Thomas Haldenwang, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) head, claimed he would collect data on the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party efforts to verify whether they comply with the Basic Law.
The Young Alternative is already being monitored by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in the city of Bremen, and by the federal lands of Lower Saxony and Baden-Württemberg. Now the BfV is about to clarify the suspicion of the AfD young members having ties to far-right extremists of “Identity” (Identitäre Bewegung)that advocates the concept of a closed European culture, or identity.
It became known this September that some MPs of Saxony-Anhalt and North Rhine-Westphalia representing the AfD are going to visit Russia-occupied Donbas on September 20-28, 2022, under the auspices of the Russian military intelligence that coordinates the work with the AfD. Some AfD members from this region have already been involved in Russian ops.
In February 2018, 10 members of German regional parliaments of North Rhine-Westphalia, Berlin and Baden-Württemberg representing the AfD illegally visited Russia-annexed Crimea to discuss the lifting of the sanctions imposed by Western nations. The next month, an AfD member Ulrich Oehme, accompanied by German far-right journalist Manuel Ochsenreiter, observed the illegitimate presidential election in Crimea as part of the fake election observation mission organized by the Chairman of the Russian parliamentary Committee on International Affairs and the chairman of the Board of the International Public Foundation “Russian Peace Foundation” Leonid Slutsky.
This visit is tasked to promote Russian reading of the situation in the Donbas, with Ukrainian army discredited, and Russia’s humanitarian efforts highlighted. German politicians, at the same time, should divert the world’s attention from Russian war crimes, with counter-allegations about Ukraine and foreign combatants. The AfD visit should also voice disinfo on Ukraine using Western military aid to target civilians and infrastructure.
The visit was announced by Christian Bleks, the AfD member, on September 12. The delegation is expected to consist of:
- Natalie Veit, the Alternative for Germany party member, North Rhine-Westphalia;
- Swetlana Risto, the Alternative for Germany party member, North Rhine-Westphalia;
- Dr. Christian Blex, a member of regional parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia representing the Alternative for Germany party;
- Daniel Wald, a member of regional parliament of Saxony-Anhalt representing the Alternative for Germany party;
- Dr. Hans-Thomas Tillschneider, deputy head of the Alternative for Germany parliamentary group in the regional parliament of Saxony-Anhalt.
The delegation will obviously fly to Rostov-on-Don, Russia, and will be driven then to the occupied Donbas.The AfD delegation will most likely be allowed or allegedly allowed to meet the Ukrainian POWs, as Russiagets an excuse to deny similar access for the UN or the Red Cross in future. The AfD, therefore, should fill the void on the maintenance of POWs by the Russians, and deny information about torture, extrajudicial executions, forced amputations and other violations of the Geneva Convention by the Russians. We believethe delegation will be taken to the villages in the east of Ukraine that have been occupied by Russians not so long ago, where they will get pseudo-evidence of support for the Russians by the locals. Moscow is planning a pointed distribution of humanitarian aid to the locals for the delegation to see that.
