AfD has already held talks with Gazprom

Anyone reminded by this news of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact is drawing an understandable historical parallel. Today's situation is different, but the question is familiar: what happens to Europe if a German political force starts negotiating with Moscow while Russia is waging war on the continent?

AfD is not yet at the helm of the federal government – and "yet" is a word that grows more unsettling by the day. Markus Frohnmaier, the party's foreign policy spokesman, already met with Alexey Miller, the head of Gazprom, back in June, discussing the full resumption of gas supplies to Germany – Gazprom also confirmed the meeting. In September, Reuters reported that Putin's economic envoy and AfD leaders were preparing another meeting for next year to discuss the same topic. There is no word yet of an agreement or resumed deliveries, but the political intent is clear. AfD is selling this to voters hungry for it as a way to save the German economy, but there's one item in the price of Russian gas that never appears on German households' bills: the revenue flowing to Moscow, since the Russian state needs money to continue the war. Germany has already learned once what the consequences of dependence on Russian energy are; now AfD wants to lead it back to where it barely managed to escape from.

After its successes in the state elections, this can no longer be dismissed as the idea of an insignificant opposition party, though AfD's rise to federal power is far from a settled matter: for now, the other parties rule out forming a coalition with it. That is precisely why what is happening now matters: if Moscow is already negotiating with AfD as a possible future German leadership, that signals the weight and the hopes being placed in the party. Europe once believed that doing business with Moscow would tame its imperial policy – it did not. Ukraine is still fighting today so that we won't have to learn this lesson again, at an even higher price.

Source: Meduza