Chrupalla went on to insist that any country can potentially pose a threat to Germany.
“Take Poland, for example,” Chrupalla said, citing the country’s refusal to extradite a Ukrainian citizen German authorities suspect of sabotaging the Nord Stream gas pipelines in 2022. “Poland can also be a threat to us.”
German centrists are increasingly portraying the AfD as a party that represents Russian interests from inside Germany, with some going so far as to argue the Kremlin is taking advantage of the party’s access to official information for espionage.
Marc Henrichmann, the conservative chairman of the Bundestag’s intelligence oversight committee, said he believes that Russia is doing exactly this.
“Russia is naturally exerting its obvious influence in parliament, especially in the AfD, in order to spy and obtain sensitive information,” Henrichmann recently told German newspaper Handelsblatt. “The AfD is gratefully allowing itself to be used for this betrayal by Putin.”
Chrupalla has forcefully pushed back against those accusations.