This is hilarious, when you read what they do to people that oppose the war in Russia
[18 August 1920: The armies of Soviet Russia stand before Warsaw. Poland fights for its existence as a state. In Germany, on the other hand, the communists mobilise for “Solidarity with Soviet Russia” and against arms deliveries to the oppressed Poles. In Stuttgart, the KPD (Communist party of Germany) called for a mass protest against military support for Poland. The demonstrators were to take a stand “against the European danger of war”. The war had been arranged by French and British “capitalists” in order to “exploit Russia’s immense reservoir of raw materials”.](https://twitter.com/MattheusWehowsk/status/1645087406503149573)
This is why watching out for these Copperheads is vital. Scratch one and you’ll find the Kremlin’s ink.
Red-brown alliance in Germany sounds something worth of trying.
Paywall.
Wouldn’t it be better to build a antiwar coalition in the Kremlin?
The truth is paywalled but the lies are free
Article text:
Kremlin tries to build antiwar coalition in Germany, documents show
Marrying Germany’s far right and far left is a Kremlin goal, according to a trove of Russian documents reviewed by The Washington Post
By Catherine Belton
,
Souad Mekhennet
and
Shane Harris
April 21, 2023 at 2:00 a.m. EDT
BERLIN — When 13,000 demonstrators gathered at the Brandenburg Gate on Feb. 25 to call for an end to weapons supplies to Ukraine, the protest was led by Sahra Wagenknecht, a member of parliament for Germany’s far-left Die Linke party and a firebrand with national ambitions. Wagenknecht decried the prospect that German tanks, soon to be delivered to Ukraine, could once again be used to shoot at “Russian women and men.”
“We don’t want Germany to be drawn deeper into this war,” she said, as she called for the creation of a new peace movement and condemned the bloodshed in Ukraine, without mentioning Russia’s invasion.
Among the crowd in Berlin was Jürgen Elsässer, editor of a far-right-wing magazine, and dozens of members of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party who cheered Wagenknecht’s calls to cut off Ukraine. Elsässer’s Compact magazine had recently declared on its cover that Wagenknecht was: “The best chancellor — a candidate for the left and the right.”
The coming together of political opposites in Berlin under the banner of peace had been percolating for months, though the union remains ad hoc and unofficial. But marrying Germany’s extremes is an explicit Kremlin goal and was first proposed by senior officials in Moscow in early September, according to a trove of sensitive Russian documents largely dated from July to November that were obtained by a European intelligence service and reviewed by The Washington Post.
The documents record meetings between Kremlin officials and Russian political strategists, and the Kremlin’s orders for the strategists to focus on Germany to build antiwar sentiment in Europe and dampen support for Ukraine. The files also chronicle the strategists’ efforts to implement these plans and their reports back to the Kremlin. The documents do not contain any material that records communications between the Russian strategists and any allies in Germany. But interviews show at least one person close to Wagenknecht and several AfD members were in contact with Russian officials at the time the plans were being drawn up.
The documents — details of which were broadly corroborated by officials in Western governments — show for the first time the Kremlin’s direct attempts to interfere in German politics by seeking to forge a new coalition among Wagenknecht, the far left and the AfD, as well as to support protests by extremists on the left and right against the German government.
The aim of a new political formation, according to a document dated Sept. 9, would be to win “a majority in elections at any level” in Germany and reset the AfD to boost its standing beyond the 13 percent the party was polling at then. The reset, laid out among the documents in a proposed manifesto for the AfD that was written by Kremlin political strategists, includes forging the AfD into the party of “German unity” and declaring sanctions on Russia as counter to German interests.
“Inadequate politicians, unable to calculate the consequences of their decisions, have dragged Germany into conflict with Russia — a natural ally of our country and of our people,” the manifesto stated. “Our interests demand the restoration of normal partnership relations with Russia. … Today in Germany there are only two parties: the party of enemies of Germany and the party of its friends.” It is unclear from the documents if the manifesto ever reached anyone in the AfD.
Secret trove offers rare look into Russian cyberwar ambitions
Efforts to build antiwar sentiment in Germany are part of a hidden front in Russia’s war against Ukraine as the Kremlin tries to undermine Western unity and freeze the war on its terms. Exploiting peace protests to divide the West repeats tactics that were first honed in Soviet times, and have come back to the fore since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Elsässer, 66, who has migrated from the Communist left to the far right over the course of his political life, first led demonstrations in the 1980s against the deployment of U.S. Pershing II missiles in West Germany. His Compact magazine is now described by German officials as a Kremlin propaganda outlet.
“We know [these tactics] from the Cold War, when the Soviets tried to influence and manipulate the antiwar movements,” said a senior German security official who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
The files indicate that on July 13, first Kremlin deputy chief of staff Sergei Kiriyenko assembled a group of Russian political strategists and told them that Germany was to become “the focus” of Moscow’s efforts to undermine support for Ukraine in Europe.
The Kremlin’s proposed strategy would draw together two German factions with long-standing pro-Russian stances. Wagenknecht, 53, is a former Communist who grew up in East Germany and has clashed several times with the more traditional leadership of Die Linke, including over her populist stance against unauthorized immigration and her claims that the party was too focused on left-wing academic elites, not the working class.
Opinion polls show that her popularity is growing nationally and she is openly mulling forming a new party. German pundits predict she would draw support from the AfD’s base, and overall could garner up to 24 percent of the national vote, according to a recent poll cited by the German magazine Der Spiegel, which just put Wagenknecht on its cover.
Wagenknecht said in a statement to The Post that there would not be “any cooperation or alliance” between her “and elements of the AfD in any form.” She said that any suggestion that she may have received communications from Russian officials or their representatives proposing an alliance with the AfD was “absurd,” adding that she had “not been in contact with anyone from the Russian state or any of its representatives.”
The AfD — called the party of “Putin understanders” by some in Germany — has echoed the Kremlin’s view that the war in Ukraine was triggered by the United States and that Russia was simply defending itself from NATO encirclement while protecting Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine. Moscow has long cultivated dozens of AfD members, especially through lavish, all-expenses-paid trips to Russia, documents and interviews show.
It is not clear from the documents how the political strategists working with the Kremlin attempted to communicate with members of the AfD or other potential German allies about Moscow’s plans. But soon after the Kremlin gave the order for a union to be forged between Wagenknecht and the far right, AfD deputies began speaking in support of her in parliament and party members chanted her name at rallies. Björn Höcke, chairman of the AfD in Thüringen in eastern Germany, publicly invited her to join the party.
The AfD as well as its co-leader Tino Chrupalla declined to comment in response to questions about the alliance and whether the AfD had received any communications from the Kremlin or individuals close to it proposing such a union.
Björn Höcke, chairman of the right-wing Alternative for Germany party in Thüringen, addresses supporters at a rally in Grimma, Germany, on Aug. 28, 2020. (Jens Schlueter/Getty Images)
Some in the AfD described the Russian effort as predictable but not necessarily having any actual role in charting the party’s direction, especially since the two German camps held diametrically opposed views on running the economy. “Of course, the Russians are going to make use of every opportunity, but for them it is only theory,” said one AfD member of parliament, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive party matters. “It is some kind of theoretical battle plan. But it is not what we are practicing here.”
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov denied that the Kremlin was involved in any efforts to interfere in German politics. “This is 100 percent fake,” Peskov told The Post. “We never interfered before and now we really don’t have time for this.”
Traitors to their own country and people parroting as “patriots” and fighters for workers rights!
> “Inadequate politicians, unable to calculate the consequences of their decisions, have dragged Germany into conflict with **Russia — a natural ally of our country and of our people**,”
You can’t make this shit up! LOL
The EU should stop issuing visas for russians…
I would have definitely not guessed given the Peace campaign by the AfD
Yeah, the pro-Russian media I am monitoring are constantly making a big deal of “the changing popular opinion in Germany”.
13 comments
The irony…
This is hilarious, when you read what they do to people that oppose the war in Russia
[18 August 1920: The armies of Soviet Russia stand before Warsaw. Poland fights for its existence as a state. In Germany, on the other hand, the communists mobilise for “Solidarity with Soviet Russia” and against arms deliveries to the oppressed Poles. In Stuttgart, the KPD (Communist party of Germany) called for a mass protest against military support for Poland. The demonstrators were to take a stand “against the European danger of war”. The war had been arranged by French and British “capitalists” in order to “exploit Russia’s immense reservoir of raw materials”.](https://twitter.com/MattheusWehowsk/status/1645087406503149573)
This is why watching out for these Copperheads is vital. Scratch one and you’ll find the Kremlin’s ink.
Red-brown alliance in Germany sounds something worth of trying.
Paywall.
Wouldn’t it be better to build a antiwar coalition in the Kremlin?
The truth is paywalled but the lies are free
Article text:
Kremlin tries to build antiwar coalition in Germany, documents show
Marrying Germany’s far right and far left is a Kremlin goal, according to a trove of Russian documents reviewed by The Washington Post
By Catherine Belton
,
Souad Mekhennet
and
Shane Harris
April 21, 2023 at 2:00 a.m. EDT
BERLIN — When 13,000 demonstrators gathered at the Brandenburg Gate on Feb. 25 to call for an end to weapons supplies to Ukraine, the protest was led by Sahra Wagenknecht, a member of parliament for Germany’s far-left Die Linke party and a firebrand with national ambitions. Wagenknecht decried the prospect that German tanks, soon to be delivered to Ukraine, could once again be used to shoot at “Russian women and men.”
“We don’t want Germany to be drawn deeper into this war,” she said, as she called for the creation of a new peace movement and condemned the bloodshed in Ukraine, without mentioning Russia’s invasion.
Among the crowd in Berlin was Jürgen Elsässer, editor of a far-right-wing magazine, and dozens of members of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party who cheered Wagenknecht’s calls to cut off Ukraine. Elsässer’s Compact magazine had recently declared on its cover that Wagenknecht was: “The best chancellor — a candidate for the left and the right.”
The coming together of political opposites in Berlin under the banner of peace had been percolating for months, though the union remains ad hoc and unofficial. But marrying Germany’s extremes is an explicit Kremlin goal and was first proposed by senior officials in Moscow in early September, according to a trove of sensitive Russian documents largely dated from July to November that were obtained by a European intelligence service and reviewed by The Washington Post.
The documents record meetings between Kremlin officials and Russian political strategists, and the Kremlin’s orders for the strategists to focus on Germany to build antiwar sentiment in Europe and dampen support for Ukraine. The files also chronicle the strategists’ efforts to implement these plans and their reports back to the Kremlin. The documents do not contain any material that records communications between the Russian strategists and any allies in Germany. But interviews show at least one person close to Wagenknecht and several AfD members were in contact with Russian officials at the time the plans were being drawn up.
The documents — details of which were broadly corroborated by officials in Western governments — show for the first time the Kremlin’s direct attempts to interfere in German politics by seeking to forge a new coalition among Wagenknecht, the far left and the AfD, as well as to support protests by extremists on the left and right against the German government.
The aim of a new political formation, according to a document dated Sept. 9, would be to win “a majority in elections at any level” in Germany and reset the AfD to boost its standing beyond the 13 percent the party was polling at then. The reset, laid out among the documents in a proposed manifesto for the AfD that was written by Kremlin political strategists, includes forging the AfD into the party of “German unity” and declaring sanctions on Russia as counter to German interests.
“Inadequate politicians, unable to calculate the consequences of their decisions, have dragged Germany into conflict with Russia — a natural ally of our country and of our people,” the manifesto stated. “Our interests demand the restoration of normal partnership relations with Russia. … Today in Germany there are only two parties: the party of enemies of Germany and the party of its friends.” It is unclear from the documents if the manifesto ever reached anyone in the AfD.
Secret trove offers rare look into Russian cyberwar ambitions
Efforts to build antiwar sentiment in Germany are part of a hidden front in Russia’s war against Ukraine as the Kremlin tries to undermine Western unity and freeze the war on its terms. Exploiting peace protests to divide the West repeats tactics that were first honed in Soviet times, and have come back to the fore since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Elsässer, 66, who has migrated from the Communist left to the far right over the course of his political life, first led demonstrations in the 1980s against the deployment of U.S. Pershing II missiles in West Germany. His Compact magazine is now described by German officials as a Kremlin propaganda outlet.
“We know [these tactics] from the Cold War, when the Soviets tried to influence and manipulate the antiwar movements,” said a senior German security official who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
The files indicate that on July 13, first Kremlin deputy chief of staff Sergei Kiriyenko assembled a group of Russian political strategists and told them that Germany was to become “the focus” of Moscow’s efforts to undermine support for Ukraine in Europe.
The Kremlin’s proposed strategy would draw together two German factions with long-standing pro-Russian stances. Wagenknecht, 53, is a former Communist who grew up in East Germany and has clashed several times with the more traditional leadership of Die Linke, including over her populist stance against unauthorized immigration and her claims that the party was too focused on left-wing academic elites, not the working class.
Opinion polls show that her popularity is growing nationally and she is openly mulling forming a new party. German pundits predict she would draw support from the AfD’s base, and overall could garner up to 24 percent of the national vote, according to a recent poll cited by the German magazine Der Spiegel, which just put Wagenknecht on its cover.
Wagenknecht said in a statement to The Post that there would not be “any cooperation or alliance” between her “and elements of the AfD in any form.” She said that any suggestion that she may have received communications from Russian officials or their representatives proposing an alliance with the AfD was “absurd,” adding that she had “not been in contact with anyone from the Russian state or any of its representatives.”
The AfD — called the party of “Putin understanders” by some in Germany — has echoed the Kremlin’s view that the war in Ukraine was triggered by the United States and that Russia was simply defending itself from NATO encirclement while protecting Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine. Moscow has long cultivated dozens of AfD members, especially through lavish, all-expenses-paid trips to Russia, documents and interviews show.
It is not clear from the documents how the political strategists working with the Kremlin attempted to communicate with members of the AfD or other potential German allies about Moscow’s plans. But soon after the Kremlin gave the order for a union to be forged between Wagenknecht and the far right, AfD deputies began speaking in support of her in parliament and party members chanted her name at rallies. Björn Höcke, chairman of the AfD in Thüringen in eastern Germany, publicly invited her to join the party.
The AfD as well as its co-leader Tino Chrupalla declined to comment in response to questions about the alliance and whether the AfD had received any communications from the Kremlin or individuals close to it proposing such a union.
Björn Höcke, chairman of the right-wing Alternative for Germany party in Thüringen, addresses supporters at a rally in Grimma, Germany, on Aug. 28, 2020. (Jens Schlueter/Getty Images)
Some in the AfD described the Russian effort as predictable but not necessarily having any actual role in charting the party’s direction, especially since the two German camps held diametrically opposed views on running the economy. “Of course, the Russians are going to make use of every opportunity, but for them it is only theory,” said one AfD member of parliament, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive party matters. “It is some kind of theoretical battle plan. But it is not what we are practicing here.”
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov denied that the Kremlin was involved in any efforts to interfere in German politics. “This is 100 percent fake,” Peskov told The Post. “We never interfered before and now we really don’t have time for this.”
Traitors to their own country and people parroting as “patriots” and fighters for workers rights!
> “Inadequate politicians, unable to calculate the consequences of their decisions, have dragged Germany into conflict with **Russia — a natural ally of our country and of our people**,”
You can’t make this shit up! LOL
The EU should stop issuing visas for russians…
I would have definitely not guessed given the Peace campaign by the AfD
Yeah, the pro-Russian media I am monitoring are constantly making a big deal of “the changing popular opinion in Germany”.