To enter a secret meeting of the German parliament, lawmakers must lock their phones and leave them outside. Inside they are not even allowed to take notes. However, for many politicians, these anti-espionage precautions now seem like something of a farce.
Because sitting next to them in these secret meetings are members of Alternative for Germany, the far-right party known by its German acronym, AfD.
In the past few months alone, a top AfD politician has been accused of taking money from pro-Kremlin generals. One of the party’s parliamentary aides was revealed to have had relations with a Russian intelligence agent. And some of the state’s lawmakers flew to Moscow to watch Russian elections run from the stadium.
“Knowing for sure that sitting there, while these sensitive issues are being discussed, are lawmakers with proven connections to Moscow — it doesn’t just make me uncomfortable. It worries me,” said Erhard Grundl, a Green party member of parliament’s foreign affairs committee.
The AfD called such comments “baseless”.
While some of the accusations against the AfD may be attempts to score points by political opponents, the security concerns are real. As evidence mounts of the party’s ties to Moscow, suspicions are being voiced across the spectrum of mainstream German politics.
“The AfD continues to function as the long arm of Russia’s terrorist state,” said Roderich Kiesewetter, deputy head of parliament’s intelligence committee and a member of the center-right Christian Democrats. he wrote on social media.
Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Europe has struggled to fend off Moscow’s influence operations aimed at weakening Western unity and resolve. Concerns extend beyond wiretapping and espionage to include Moscow’s ties to political parties, especially on the far right, that are proving useful tools for the Kremlin.
In Germany and elsewhere, this alarm is only growing ahead of European Parliament elections in June, as many of these parties are expected to make their best showings yet.
The AfD, which opposes arms deliveries to Ukraine and calls for an end to sanctions on Russia, is not only vying to become the second-strongest German party in European parliamentary elections. It is poised to become the leading force in three eastern state elections in Germany this fall. This gives the AfD the possibility, though still unlikely, of taking control of a state government.
“This would be a completely new situation as far as Russia is concerned, where people who make propaganda, spread information, could also be in power,” said Martina Renner, a member of parliament from the Left party who sits on the interior committee. security of parliament.
German lawmakers across the spectrum, including Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats and conservative Christian Democrats, have a long history of cozy economic ties that have embroiled them in Russian interests. Critics say that’s one reason the government has failed to move more aggressively against Russian intelligence operations — for fear of revealing how deep ties to Moscow once were.
However, in the wake of the war in Ukraine, mainstream lawmakers have come to regret those ties and most have severed them, while many lawmakers in the AfD instead appear intent on deepening them.
On Friday, Belgian authorities announced they had launched their own investigations into reported payments to European lawmakers. Some of the strongest suspicions have been leveled against Petr Bistron, an AfD member of the German parliament’s foreign affairs committee.
In 2022, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Mr Bystron led AfD lawmakers demanding to know why the German government had not fought for the freedom of a pro-Putin Ukrainian oligarch, Viktor Medvedchuk, whom they described as ” the most important Ukrainian. opposition politician”.
Mr Medvedchuk previously founded a pro-Moscow political party in Ukraine and owned several pro-Kremlin television channels there. He had been placed under house arrest in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, after the Russian invasion on charges of treason.
He was later released and sent to Russia in a prisoner exchange with Moscow, where he apparently remained active in promoting Russian interests.
Last month, authorities in the Czech Republic and Belgium accused Mr Medvedchuk of being part of a Russian “influence” ring that funneled money and cryptocurrencies through a media platform, Voice of Europe, to politicians from at least six European countries in exchange for spreading of Kremlin propaganda.
Mr Bystron appeared several times on the Voice of Europe, where he described his party as a bulwark against “globalist” parties and repeated his objections to Western sanctions against Russia.
He and several members of the AfD are now among those suspected of receiving payments, authorities said, although no charges have been brought against anyone so far. Mr. Bystron’s office did not respond to a New York Times request for comment.
Last week, Mr Bystron, who is the AfD’s candidate in the European elections, described the case as a kind of conspiracy against the party. “Before every election it’s the same: defamation with the help of the secret services,” he told AfD-affiliated website Deutschland Kurier.
As for the suspicions about his and the AfD’s questions in support of Mr Medvedchuk – a move other lawmakers have labeled as suspicious – a spokesman for the AfD caucus told The Times, “We categorically reject the discrediting of the opposition’s work by members of other parliamentary groups, which is apparently motivated by party tactics.”
Konstantin von Notz, a member of the Green party and head of Parliament’s intelligence oversight committee, called the allegations against Mr Bystron “the tip of the iceberg”.
Two months ago, an investigation by The Insider and Der Spiegel published what it described as communications via an encrypted messaging service last year between Wladimir Sergijenko, an aide to an AfD member of parliament, and a Russian intelligence agent.
The alleged encrypted communications between Mr Sergijenko and the intelligence agent discussed the AfD’s plans to file a lawsuit to stop or stop the delivery of German weapons to Ukraine, including much-needed tanks, alleging that the government had not requested parliamentary approval. He told the agent the plan needed “media and financial backing,” according to the report.
Last July, the AfD filed just such a lawsuit. But the party said it had nothing to do with Mr Sergijenko, calling any accusations of ties to Russian intelligence “fictitious”.
But concerns about Moscow’s influence on the party extend beyond the actions of a few individuals and also point to deepening ideological ties.
A top aide to AfD leader Tino Chrupalla published an article on an obscure website linked to Aleksandr Dugin, a right-wing ideologue whose “Russian World” idea helped inspire Mr Putin and the invasion of Ukraine. Mr. Dugin also popularized terms such as “Eurasianism” that now appear in the rhetoric of many AfD figures.
This month, Mr Scholz said many AfD leaders’ comments on Europe and security issues were “very similar” to Mr Putin’s.
Una Titz, an analyst at the Amadeu Antonio Foundation who researches the far right and relations with Moscow, said the AfD’s tone on Russia and Europe began to change in 2018, when Russian officials invited some AfD members to observe the election .
Since then, there have been several AfD delegations in Russia. One member of parliament even wanted to open an office in Moscow, but backed down after protests from fellow MPs.
“Of course this was carefully orchestrated,” Ms Titz said of Moscow’s ties to the AfD. “This is part of Russia’s non-linear war against Western democracies.”
Indeed, some officials say privately that the AfD’s ties to Moscow may be just the most obvious manifestation of a much wider problem of covert Russian infiltration of Germany’s political parties and institutions.
Officials acknowledge that most aides – of whom there are hundreds in Parliament – have not been vetted and cannot be sure of their backgrounds.
“With the AfD, it’s very easy,” said Ms Renner, of the Homeland Security Committee. But Russia’s secret service wants to find allies “with the big parties, or even take over the ruling parties,” he warned. “They want them everywhere.”
Oleg Matsnev contributed reporting from Berlin.
