AfD Putler fans and Germans celebrating Octoberfest in Saxony by listening to nazi songs and making Hitler salutes

Outrage erupts in Poland after a video emerged online of Germans celebrating Octoberfest in Saxony by listening to nazi songs and making Hitler salutes. 

Many parts of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) support Russia, its foreign policy, and its allies. For example, AfD members and activists were listed as keeping close ties with Russian politicians and receiving financial benefits in an OCCRP investigation of Russia’s International Agency for Current Policy.

Ukraine crisis and war in Donbass

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In March 2019, then coparty leader Alexander Gauland said in an interview with the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda that they consider the War in Donbass to be a Ukrainian internal matter, and that Germany should not get involved in the internal affairs of Ukraine or Russia. He also said the AfD is against Western sanctions imposed on Russia.[2]

AfD rejects EU sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine conflict.[3]

In September 2022, it was reported that 5 AfD politicians were planning to travel to occupied Donbas in eastern Ukraine.[4][5]

In August 2023 The Insider and Spiegel published a joint investigation into actions of Russian citizen Vladimir Sergienko who proxied money and instructions from Russia to AfD politicians, who filed a constitutional complaint in Germany against its supplies of weapons to Ukraine. Sergienko coordinated a number of other AfD initiatives, such as letter to the Pope and anti-Ukrainian declaration of Harald Weyel in PACE.