The truth behind AfD’s Russian ‘scandal’
The popular party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is under coordinated attack from the mainstream media for alleged Russian contacts, mainly directed against the ‘German Center for Eurasian Studies’, a NGO and it’s head Manuel Ochsenreiter. In an exclusive interview with FWM, Mr. Ochsenreiter points out that although the media have been researching the alleged connections for months, they can’t present the slightest evidence, and he exposes the driving forces behind the smear campaign.
Mr. Ochsenreiter, in middle of August, several mainstream newspapers launched a campaign against the AfD party, your “German Center for Eurasian Studies” and you personally. The whole tale is about Russian influence on the AfD and how your Center allegedly serves as an instrument in a pro-Russian European network. The German mainstream media have presented their research as a huge media scoop. Was that the case?
– What “research”? The whole story is devoid of any content – as per usual with this topic. Mainstream media doesn’t work with facts, it works with blurry allegations. Mainstream newspaper journalists are criticizing my assistance in organizing electoral and crisis observation missions on the territory of the former Soviet Union, activities the Center has been very open about. Some parliamentarians of the AfD party took part in missions in Ukraine, the two Donbass Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk and in the Republic of Artsakh [known as Nagorno-Karabakh] during the last years. Our mainstream media doesn’t like that, and that’s their whole story.