AfD Russian-German Voter Support Reaches 31 Percent

The far-right Alter­na­tive for Ger­many (AfD), now the biggest oppo­si­tion par­ty in the Bun­destag, is steadi­ly gain­ing sup­port, with some polls sug­gest­ing that the AfD has pulled ahead of Chan­cel­lor Friedrich Merz’s con­ser­v­a­tive Chris­t­ian Democ­rats (CDU) and its allied Bavar­i­an Chris­t­ian Social Union (CSU). In Sep­tem­ber’s munic­i­pal elec­tions across North Rhine-West­phalia, Ger­many’s most-pop­u­lous state, the AfD tripled its share of the vote from 2020. Researchers have found that the AfD enjoys par­tic­u­lar sup­port among eth­nic Ger­mans who reset­tled from the for­mer Sovi­et Union and their descen­dants, peo­ple often referred to as Rus­sia Ger­mans. Accord­ing to a recent study by the Kon­rad Ade­nauer Foun­da­tion, 31% of Rus­sia Ger­mans are pre­pared to vote for the AfD.

Read more: https://www.dw.com/en/the-afd-is-drawing-support-from-russia-germans/a‑74223088

The Alter­na­tive for Ger­many (AfD) is a nation­al con­ser­v­a­tive polit­i­cal par­ty in Ger­many, found­ed in 2013 ini­tial­ly as a Euroscep­tic move­ment opposed to the euro­zone bailout poli­cies. Since then, it has shift­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the right, embrac­ing nation­al­ist, anti-immi­gra­tion, and anti-Islam positions.

For more, see https://www.global-influence-ops.com/wiki/alternative-for-germany-afd/

Key Points

• AfD rep­re­sen­ta­tives will now dom­i­nate inte­gra­tion coun­cils in sev­er­al North Rhine-West­phalia cities, with the par­ty tak­ing first place in Pader­born with 24.5 per­cent of the vote and 27.9 per­cent in Det­mold, both locat­ed in the admin­is­tra­tive dis­trict with the high­est share of Russ­ian Germans.
• Polit­i­cal sci­en­tist Andreas Wüst said Russ­ian Ger­mans appear to have begun shift­ing their sup­port from the con­ser­v­a­tive CDU/CSU bloc to the AfD around 2015 and 2016 when hun­dreds of thou­sands of dis­placed peo­ple applied for asy­lum in Germany.
• Unlike most oth­er Ger­man par­ties, the AfD has tak­en a Rus­sia-friend­ly stance on cer­tain issues, with par­ty co-leader Alice Wei­del promis­ing to rebuild the sab­o­taged Nord Stream gas pipelines and not includ­ing con­dem­na­tion of Rus­si­a’s aggres­sion in Ukraine in its manifesto.
• The AfD has clear­ly worked to reach Russ­ian Ger­mans through direct out­reach, includ­ing hav­ing a com­mis­sion­er for Russ­ian-Ger­man affairs, dis­trib­ut­ing its pro­grams in Russ­ian, and recruit­ing sev­er­al Russ­ian Ger­mans as par­ty members.

Germany’s AfD and Russia: How Russian-Germans Fuel Far-Right Ties to Moscow

Ger­many’s Alter­na­tive for Ger­many (AfD) has cul­ti­vat­ed exten­sive ties with Rus­sia span­ning ide­o­log­i­cal align­ment, alleged espi­onage, and finan­cial sup­port. AfD politi­cians have made repeat­ed vis­its to Russ­ian-occu­pied ter­ri­to­ries, includ­ing trips to annexed Crimea and occu­pied Don­bas, while advo­cat­ing for open­ing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and halt­ing weapons deliv­er­ies to Ukraine. Mul­ti­ple espi­onage scan­dals emerged in 2024, with arrests of AfD aides work­ing for Chi­nese and Russ­ian intel­li­gence ser­vices, includ­ing Vladimir Sergien­ko, who coor­di­nat­ed pro-Russ­ian ini­tia­tives at the direc­tion of an FSB officer.

Inves­ti­ga­tions have also revealed alle­ga­tions that promi­nent AfD fig­ures received funds from a pro-Russ­ian net­work linked to sanc­tioned Ukrain­ian oli­garch Vik­tor Medved­chuk. The par­ty’s sys­tem­at­ic ori­en­ta­tion toward Moscow has been par­tic­u­lar­ly effec­tive in east­ern Ger­many, where the par­ty ben­e­fits from resid­ual cul­tur­al empa­thy with Rus­sia among the 6 mil­lion Russ­ian-speak­ing pop­u­la­tion, with RT Deutsch’s cov­er­age dis­play­ing sig­nif­i­cant con­gru­ence with AfD posi­tions. Russ­ian-Ger­mans, who con­sti­tute a sig­nif­i­cant vot­ing bloc fol­low­ing their repa­tri­a­tion from the for­mer Sovi­et Union in the 1990s, have become a core AfD con­stituen­cy, with some com­mu­ni­ties deliv­er­ing over 50% sup­port for the party.

Exter­nal References:
— France24: Has Ger­many’s far-right AfD become a gate­way for Chi­nese and Russ­ian spies?
— Euro­maid­an Press: Rus­sia sus­pect­ed of fun­nel­ing funds to Ger­many’s AfD par­ty for pro-Russ­ian messaging
— The Insid­er: Exclu­sive: Far-right Ger­man par­lia­men­tary aide tasked by Rus­sia with stop­ping Leop­ard tanks to Ukraine
— Cor­rec­tiv: Alter­na­tive for Rus­sia: How the AfD is sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly turn­ing towards Russia
— Kyiv Inde­pen­dent: Rise of Ger­many’s AfD sig­nals grow­ing sup­port for pro-Russ­ian policies
— Har­vard Inter­na­tion­al Review: The Rus­si­fied Ger­man Far-Right

 Dis­claimer:
The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) uti­lizes AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing the gen­er­a­tion of sum­maries for news items, intro­duc­tions, key points, and, often, the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, all images are gen­er­at­ed using AI and are intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.