One of the leaders of the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) stated that Vladimir Putin’s Russia is not a threat to his country. Instead, Poland could be a threat.
The comments, echoing Kremlin messages, come at a time when German center politicians increasingly warn that AfD is using its growing influence to act as a spokesperson for Putin in Germany, a claim strongly denied by AfD leaders, as reported by Politico.
"Putin 'hasn't done anything to me'," said Tino Chrupalla, co-chair of AfD, on German public television. "I don't see any danger for Germany from Russia at this moment," he said.
Chrupalla continued to insist that any country could pose a potential threat to Germany. "Take Poland, for example," Chrupalla said, citing Warsaw's refusal to extradite a Ukrainian citizen suspected by German authorities of sabotaging the Nord Stream gas pipelines in 2022. "Poland can also be a threat to us," Chrupalla concluded.
German center politicians increasingly present AfD as a party representing Russia's interests within Germany, with some going as far as to claim that the Kremlin is taking advantage of the party's access to official information for espionage. Marc Henrichmann, the conservative chairman of the Bundestag's intelligence oversight committee, stated that he believes Russia is indeed doing this.
"Russia naturally exerts its obvious influence in Parliament, especially in AfD, to spy and obtain sensitive information," said Henrichmann recently to the German newspaper Handelsblatt. "AfD gratefully allows itself to be used by Putin for this betrayal," said the CDU deputy.
Chrupalla strongly rejected these accusations. "They accuse us of things they can never prove, and I think it's perfidious," he said on the public television program.
Internal Dispute
Chrupalla's comments come in the context of AfD leaders being involved in an internal dispute regarding a group of party politicians who were planning a trip to Russia to attend an international conference of BRICS countries in Sochi.
The other AfD president, Alice Weidel - who has tried to improve the party's image, keep some of the most pro-Russian politicians of the formation in check, and get closer to the Donald Trump administration - has tried to prevent her colleagues from participating in the meeting in Russia, signaling an increasing division within her party about the extent of support for Moscow.
"We shouldn't continue like this," she told reporters in the Bundestag on Tuesday. "We can't afford it and we don't want to," assured the AfD leader.