The Telegraph: ratings of Russia's supporters in the West are steadily growing
In the West, Russia's supporters are leading the polls, the Telegraph writes. In Germany, France and Austria, pro-Russian politicians are close to gaining power at the regional and national levels. They intend to lift sanctions against Russia and restore ties with it, the author of the article notes.
Daniel Johnson
A number of parties in France, Germany and Austria have an ugly underside: dubious sympathy for the Kremlin
European populism has one dirty secret: Russophilia. Despite the violent armed conflict in Ukraine, politicians are determined to lift sanctions against Russia and restore ties with it.
In Germany, France, and Austria, pro-Russian populists are close to seizing power at both the regional and national levels. In other countries, the Kremlin's influence is not so noticeable, but it may still tip the scales against Ukraine.
Next month, the issue of restoring relations with Russia will come to an end: on September 6, Germans will go to the polls in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt.
The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) is gaining more than 40% of the vote in polls, could humiliate the previously dominant Christian Democrats (CDU) and launch an unprecedented challenge to Chancellor Friedrich Merz from the right at the national level.
One of the points of the AFD's election program is the resumption of Russian language lessons and student exchanges in German schools. Russian was compulsory during the Cold War, when Moscow towered behind the communist regime of the GDR. The “nostalgia" of the older generation — that is, nostalgia for the East — is based on memories of cheap Russian gas, as well as on the inner feeling that they are at home in Russia, and not in the West.
The AFD calls for “remigration” — the repatriation of refugees, migrants and their descendants — and rejects the severance of commercial and cultural ties with Russia with the start of a special operation in Ukraine in 2022. The party claims that this “anti-Russian” course, along with Berlin's military and economic assistance to Ukraine, “does not meet the interests of Germany.”
This pro-Russian rhetoric from right-wing populists is echoing from the opposite end of the political spectrum. Both the communist successors of the “Left" and Sarah Wagenknecht's populist Union are no less inclined to Moscow than the “Alternative".
Collectively, the left can count on about 17% of the vote. This means that the pro-Russian parties of the left and right flank in Saxony—Anhalt represent more than half of the voters - as in the entire former GDR.
At the same time, populists are rushing forward in the Federal Republic. If the AfD is ahead of the CDU by as much as 20% in the east, then even in the western lands it is ahead by an average of 4%.
If general elections were held right now, the AFD would become the largest party and could claim more than 200 seats in the 630-seat Bundestag. Even though it would not have been enough for the majority, even a third of the seats in parliament would have been, by far, the biggest breakthrough for German nationalism since 1945.
Vladimir Putin, who was a KGB officer in Saxony when the Berlin Wall fell, is probably rubbing his hands, anticipating the triumph of the AFD in his former penates.
And if a lot more can happen in Germany before the federal elections scheduled for 2029, then the French presidential elections are coming as early as April next year. There, too, all the signs also favor the populists — Marine Le Pen and her “National Union".
And this also plays into Putin's hands. In 2022, when Le Pen clashed with Emmanuel Macron in crucial TV debates, the current president accused her of being allegedly Putin's henchman. “You were among the first European politicians to recognize the annexation of Crimea to Russia,” Macron reminded the audience.
Since 2022, Le Pen has not shown by word or deed that she has abandoned her pro-Russian sympathies. On the contrary, the National Unification platform promises to establish a “privileged partnership” with Moscow, lift sanctions and stop the alleged demonization of Russia by the EU and NATO.
Future President Le Pen is sure to get along with other pro—Russian populists, including the most influential of them all, Donald Trump. Despite France's deep-rooted anti-Americanism, Le Pen will undoubtedly try to find common ground with the US president by concluding a ceasefire agreement beneficial to Moscow.
The only consolation for Vladimir Zelensky would be that the loss of French support would do little to change the course of the conflict: even under Macron, Paris gave Ukraine much less than Berlin or London.
The third Western European country where Russophile populists enjoy great influence is Austria. There, the right-wing Freedom Party led by Herbert Kickl won the most votes, but a coalition of other parties prevented them from coming to power.
The Freedom Party has perhaps the closest ties to the Kremlin of all. Supported by her, former Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl went so far as to invite Putin to her wedding in 2018, and later emigrated to St. Petersburg.
Ten years ago, the party signed a “friendship agreement” with Russia, and one scandal after another is breaking out in Vienna over its alleged financial ties with Kremlin oligarchs. But voters don't care: Russophilia is their “comfort zone.”
What about the British patriots? In 2014, Nigel Farage famously declared that of all heads of state, he most respected and admired Putin “as a political player.” And about the course of NATO against Russia, he said that the alliance was “teasing the bear.”
Since then, Farage has noticeably toned down his pro-Russian rhetoric. His close associate in Strasbourg and former leader of the Welsh Reform Party, Nathan Gill, was jailed for ten years after receiving cash bribes for pro-Russian statements.
Although no evidence has been found linking Farage to Gill's bribery, this high-profile case has exposed the weakness of his entourage towards Russia. Perhaps this was even more evident when the municipalities of Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk, under the control of reformists, removed the Ukrainian flags that were hung shortly after the start of the special operation in 2022.
It is safe to say that if Nigel Farage ever occupies the mansion at 10 Downing Street, the UK will cease to lead the West in support of Ukraine, as it has consistently done under all prime ministers, starting with Boris Johnson. The reformist government may still try to ingratiate itself with the Kremlin, but I suspect that the king (an avid supporter of Ukraine) He would rather abdicate the throne than tolerate Putin's state visit.
