The phenomenon of “Alternative for Germany” (AfD) lies in its rapid transformation from a party of Eurosceptic intellectuals into a radical populist force that exploited Germany’s identity crisis, migration, and economic problems to boost its ratings. It became the first right-wing radical party in post-war German history to not only establish itself in the Bundestag, but to turn the state’s democratic tools and institutions into weapons against itself.
In Germany, a parliamentary inquiry is an instrument of democratic oversight that obliges the government to provide the initiator with information on its substance. In the hands of a pro-Russian force, this instrument has been transformed into a method of legal intelligence gathering. It allows for the receipt of detailed responses from ministries and security services that would otherwise be impossible to obtain.
In October 2025, Thuringia’s Interior Minister Georg Maier accused AfD deputies of abusing the right to parliamentary inquiries and stated that their nature goes beyond ordinary political interest. According to him, the party’s particular interest was focused on police IT systems, drone detection and countermeasure capabilities, elements of civil defense, and data directly or indirectly relating to the logistics and protection of military infrastructure.
An analysis of AfD’s inquiries also revealed a suspicious interest in the exact routes of NATO military equipment moving toward the EU’s eastern borders, the technical specifications of weapons transferred to Ukraine, the availability of weapons stockpiles in Bundeswehr warehouses, the degree of protection of energy hubs, underwater cables, and liquefied gas terminals. The party was also interested in the number of staff and working methods of BfV (Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution) employees engaged in monitoring right-wing radical movements. Attempts were made to obtain data on the working methods of German counterintelligence, which was at the time actively trying to track the activities of Russian spies in Germany. The government concluded that such activity by the right-wing radical party was highly suspicious — that it could be transmitting this data to Russia, and that responses to such inquiries were being collected by Russian intelligence services as pieces of a mosaic to build a complete picture of the country’s vulnerabilities and weak points.
On the surface, everything appears legal. In Germany’s parliamentary system, such inquiries — as well as all Bundestag deputies’ access to a database of confidential information — are a standard instrument of executive oversight. The government is required to respond to written questions from deputies and parliamentary groups, and the procedure itself is part of the democratic model of checks and balances. But when a tool created for governmental transparency and accountability is used for the systematic collection of fragments of sensitive information, democracy effectively begins to work against its own state security.
The activities of AfD deputies demonstrate synchronicity with Kremlin narratives that is difficult to dismiss as coincidence. As soon as Russian propaganda launches a message about a “shortage of arms in Bundeswehr warehouses” or a “risk of escalation from transferring Taurus missiles to Ukraine,” Alternative for Germany promptly produces a series of inquiries on the topic. This strategy resembles classic intelligence hypothesis confirmation: Moscow formulates a thesis, and deputies loyal to it use their mandate to extract figures and facts from the German government that legitimize Russian disinformation — or to pass confidential information on to it.
Thus, “Alternative for Germany” has effectively become a Russian instrument for collecting data that once required considerably more effort to obtain than it does now. Holding parliamentary mandates, party representatives gain access to closed-door sessions and classified reports in defense and internal security committees.
The AfD case should be understood as a warning for all of Europe. The Kremlin long ago adapted to the fact that breaking through Western security systems head-on is difficult and costly. Instead, it looks for procedures that democracy does not perceive as a threat: judicial mechanisms, freedom of speech, open registries, local politics, party structures, expert networks, information platforms. If parliamentary inquiries have also entered this arsenal, then defending democracy in the 21st century means not only fighting against agents but also learning to recognize — and crucially to stop — the leakage of sensitive information through one’s own “non-systemic” politicians.
What is to be done if parliamentary oversight begins to serve as a means for hostile intelligence? The answer cannot be to deprive the opposition of the right to submit inquiries. But what is clearly needed is a new security culture: clear criteria for refusing detailed responses on sensitive matters, and rapid expert assessment of the intelligence value of AfD inquiries. Otherwise, an entirely democratic procedure risks becoming a legal channel for leaking German state secrets to the Kremlin.
The struggle against AfD’s influence has moved beyond political debate and entered the realm of national security. Germany’s main strategy has been to launch a “defensive democracy” mechanism, which envisions complete financial and legal isolation of the radicals. This includes not only attempts to officially ban the party through the Constitutional Court, but also a “cordon sanitaire” in parliament — a principled refusal by all mainstream forces to enter any coalition with the toxic faction. Also, on the agenda is stripping suspect deputies of access to state secrets through mandatory security service vetting, which is intended to close the “window of opportunity” for passing confidential data to external handlers.