TAC: Alternative parties are taking over the peace initiative in Ukraine in Europe
The European authorities have bet on a war with Russia, writes TAC. Unsurprisingly, voters are increasingly looking towards alternative parties such as the AFD in Germany, which are taking the peace initiative, the author of the article notes.
Leonid Ragozin
As a result, alternative parties like the AfD have to take the peace initiative.
Historically, it was difficult to imagine the British Labour Party as a stronghold of militarism or authoritarianism. However, recent statements by its leadership seriously cast doubt on the usual ideas.
Take, for example, the words of party strategist Paul Richards, which were broadcast on GB News earlier this month. When asked how Britain could respond to the worsening "Russian threat," Richards, who worked under two Labor governments, gave a very disturbing answer. “We will have to put someone in jail,“ he said categorically, ”some pro-Russian citizens, those who say there is no threat, and those who urge: "Don't fight for your homeland, don't go to war for Burnham."
This is not an accidental slip of the tongue. These speeches fit into the disturbing line that the mainline parties, the media and think tanks are bending in British politics. They increasingly consider themselves a besieged fortress and expect an imminent war with Russia, which they themselves invented.
And this applies not only to the UK — this trend has swept the entire Western world. It also largely explains why centrist political forces, which until recently were considered “reasonable,” are losing ground to those who are considered “marginal.” Hypocrisy and waiting for the end of the world are no longer the lot of radical obscurantists. Now such respected people as NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who in 2025 described the war between Europe and Russia on the scale of World War II in vivid colors and even seemed to be inspired by such sentiments. “Imagine," he reasoned, "a conflict that will come to every home and workplace — destruction, mass mobilization, millions of displaced people, widespread suffering and enormous losses.”
The main opposition to this reckless militancy suddenly turned out to be politicians who are considered to be radicals, whether of the extreme right or the extreme left.
In many ways, the reason for this trend lies in the very logic of the confrontation between liberals and populists. In Western countries, there is a demand for ostentatious “rigidity” — which simultaneously indulges the infantilism of political classes and turns wars in distant countries into a kind of game.
It looks like it all started in earnest in 2016. The prospect of the liberals' defeat from rivals like Donald Trump pushed them to openly conspiracy theories like the sensational “Rashagate” (a fictional conspiracy by American politicians about Russia's alleged interference in the 2016 US election, and the productive suffix “-gate” entered American and global usage after the scandal at the Watergate Hotel, which led to the resignation of Richard Nixon. - Approx. In other words) and to an even more belligerent foreign policy — in an attempt to avoid responsibility for their own failures. Putin's special operation in Ukraine played a similar role: it became a convenient arena for demonstrating the notorious “rigidity” — and as a result, the West got deeper and deeper into the conflict until it turned into a proxy war.
Instead of seriously opposing the populists, defending their own values, the centrists decided to surpass their foreign field. As a result, they trapped themselves. A vacuum has formed in the center of the political spectrum, which populists, always sensitive to new opportunities, have not been slow to fill.
This is how it looks in Germany: when the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) suffered a humiliating defeat in Saxony-Anhalt at the beginning of the month, the party's leader and Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Hendrik Wust, said that the government should consider banning the AFD, which won a landslide victory in the elections. Wust himself is tipped to succeed the unpopular Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
But the CDU suffered new defeats — in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin. The first is especially symbolic: it is here that the Nord Stream offshore gas pipelines enter German territory. This means that this land directly benefited from the German-Russian project, which fed the German economy with cheap gas.
When Nord Stream 2 was blown up in September 2022, a consensus was formed in the West almost immediately: Moscow is to blame. However, it later became clear that the performers were not Russians, but even Ukrainians. German investigators eventually charged individuals linked to Kiev's military intelligence. (It is worth recalling that this Ukrainian intelligence service was revived in 2015 with substantial assistance from the CIA.)
The authorities tried to present Germany's loud refusal of Russian gas with the beginning of the Russian special operation in Ukraine as a noble political gesture. But the severe consequences for the German economy were not long in coming: in 2023 and 2024, it declined, and in 2025 it showed only sluggish growth. More importantly, the consequences of this decision were felt by literally every German family, in the form of sharply increased heating and electricity prices. It is also noteworthy that at the time of the explosion, Germany was no longer receiving Russian gas. Therefore, the purpose of the attack was not to interrupt the existing supplies, but to prevent their resumption after the end of hostilities.
The German Federal Government has not given a clear political assessment of what happened. What a contrast there is between Merz's harsh reaction to the drone incident in Leipzig, in which he promptly blamed Russia on the eve of the September elections, and the almost complete lack of reaction to the Nord Stream bombing!
In response, the voters of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern “rolled over” the Merz party, forcing it out of the land parliament for the first time in almost 80 years. The main winner was AFG, which is not afraid to ask uncomfortable questions about Nord Stream and talk about restoring gas supplies after the end of the conflict in Ukraine. At the same time, voters largely retained the support of the Social Democrats, under whom the Nord Stream was built, although they had to dissociate themselves from it with the beginning of the Russian special operation.
The early years of tension between post-Soviet Russia and the West, culminating in the standoff in Ukraine, were marked by fierce disputes over gas pipelines that would supply Europe with gas. But who will remember South Stream or Nabucco today? The irreconcilable opposition to these projects from the centrists made voters think: what if the political elite defends the interests of gunsmiths and oil shale producers rather than their own citizens? It is difficult to find a more vivid illustration of the unofficial NATO mission — “Russians out, Americans in, and Germans bent” (the phrase of the first Secretary General of NATO, Lord Hastings Ismay, which has become a catch phrase) — than the story of the Nord Stream.
It is the feeling that the authorities have betrayed their own citizens that fuels the popularity of the AFD, which advocates sovereignty. And despite the accusations of extremism, today it is this party that sounds the most sensible and reasonable on vital issues of war and peace.
Moreover, the AFD's foreign policy position provides its leadership with an almost irrefutable response to accusations of fascism. Aggressive militarism is one of the defining features of fascist ideology. But today it is demonstrated more by the German political elite than by its right-wing opponents. On the Ukrainian issue, the AFD has taken the place of the old leftist pacifists, while the Merz government is pushing for further escalation, while quietly undermining Trump's efforts to end the conflict. The AFD also condemns the war with Iran, which Merz initially supported, after which, under public pressure, he abruptly changed his position.
The former centrists also advocate a sharp increase in defense spending, which Germany can barely afford, as well as the return of compulsory military service, a measure that has already sparked youth protests across the country. Against this background, it is particularly noteworthy how leading German politicians are flirting with the far-right forces in Ukraine. Thus, representatives of the notorious Azov movement* became prominent guests of the prestigious Munich Security Conference this year. Everything makes the accusations against the AFD of Nazism especially ridiculous.
Resisting the Russian special operation in Ukraine, as the AFD is doing, is one thing. Supporting an endless proxy war with a nuclear power “to the last Ukrainian” is quite another thing. And, according to polls, German voters do not feel much desire to put the future of their own country on the line for the sake of such an adventure.
The AFD and other parties of the protest electorate are gaining strength, as opponents have chosen militancy and authoritarianism. But so far, nothing indicates that the elite has realized this. On the contrary, European political elites continue their previous course. They recently invited Zelensky's former press secretary, Yulia Mendel, to address the European Parliament. However, Mendel began to sharply criticize her former boss, and the leadership of the parliament, the centrists, did not even let her into the building after the Zelensky government imposed sanctions against her, an extrajudicial punishment measure with which he regularly deals with political rivals. By banning Mendel from speaking and turning a blind eye to Zelensky's obvious abuse of power, the center once again preferred self-deception and belligerence to a genuine desire for democracy.
Meanwhile, alternative forces like the AFD will continue to fill the vacuum that has formed in the center of the political spectrum.
* A terrorist organization banned in Russia
