“Balanced view”
Weidel denies the AfD’s closeness to Putin
March 24, 2024, 7:53 a.m
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Statements by AfD politicians close to the Kremlin are not uncommon. According to her own statement, Alice Weidel still cannot find any sympathy for the Russian leadership in her party. Rather, a “balanced view of things” prevails.
AfD leader Alice Weidel has rejected the accusation that her party is uneasy with the Kremlin. “It is simply important to me that a very balanced view of things is not confused with an alleged closeness to the Russian President, Vladimir Putin,” said Weidel. With regard to the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, Weidel, who co-chairs the party and the Bundestag parliamentary group together with Tino Chrupalla, said: “Glorifying one warring party and demonizing the other side will not bring us to a solution.”
She would like “the federal government to focus more on compensation.” AfD MP Hans-Thomas Tillschneider said in the state parliament of Saxony-Anhalt a few days ago that he had congratulated Putin on his re-election because he had “ensured stability and prosperity in Russia” in recent years.
The head of the Law and Organization Department in the Defense Ministry, Jan Stöß, said on Friday at a symposium on “Intelligence Services and Armed Conflicts” with a view to Germany: “We have espionage activities, we have cases of treason, and domestically we have a situation of political radicalization .” But this does not happen in parallel and independently of each other. In the cases of treason there is a trace back to political radicalism, “to a certain party that is also represented in the Bundestag and which is particularly close to Russia.”
Secret service employees in court
In Berlin, a former employee of the Federal Intelligence Service is currently being tried before the Chamber Court. It’s about suspicion of treason. Carsten L. is said to have passed on secret information to a Russian intelligence service. The Federal Prosecutor’s Office has also charged a German professional soldier with alleged secret service agent activity – he is also said to have provided information to a Russian secret service.
Weidel admitted that the different views on Russia would make it more difficult to form factions in the right-wing camp after the European elections. She said: “There’s a lot of movement going on at the moment, including in terms of positioning towards Russia.” The AfD is currently a member of the Identity and Democracy faction. Most of the group’s MPs belong to the right-wing Italian Lega and the French right-wing nationalist party Rassemblement National. In addition, other right-wing parties are organized in the Group of European Conservatives and Reformers. It includes the Polish PiS and the party of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the Fratelli d’Italia.