Media: Kremlin assisted German far-right candidate in the parliamentary elections
The Russian State Duma and the Russian Presidential Administration took part in developing a strategy for the candidate of Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD), Markus Frohnmaier, in order to win German parliamentary elections.
BBC, ZDF, Der Spiegel and La Repubblica came to this conclusion after conducting an investigation based on the information of the Dossier Center, a non-commercial project project of the exiled Russian businessman, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, reported MBH-Media website.
On April 3, 2017, six months before the election, Peter Premyak, the assistant of the United Russia deputy to the State Duma Viktor Schrader, wrote a letter to two high-ranking officials of the Russian Presidential Administration, in which he described election practices in Germany. This letter was sent to the head of the foreign policy department of the Russian Federation Administration, Alexander Manzhoshin, and the head of the presidential office foreign policy department, Sergey Sokolov.
The letter had an attachment called "Team’s Foreign Policy Activities, which explained "the organization of rallies, pickets and other protest actions in EU countries aimed at discrediting events or persons opposing foreign policy trends of the Russian Federation." In the last section of the document, it was mentioned that Markus Frohnmaier, the member of the ultra-right party "Alternative for Germany" (AfD), should be supported in the parliamentary elections. "There will be an absolutely controllable deputy in the Bundestag," said the document.
As a result, the AfD party came in a third place with 12.6% of the votes in the elections, which allowed it to create a faction of 94 deputies in the parliament.
In Ukraine, Frohnmaier is known for his assistant’s involvement in hiring Polish nationals to attack the Society of Hungarian Culture building in Uzhhorod.