[ad_1]
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with an AfD delegation in Moscow for nearly three hours for a working lunch in a “very warm atmosphere,” as guests afterwards proudly reported.
Warmth is not the first quality that comes to mind for Sergei Lavrov, the top Russian diplomat with a sullen and professional expression on his face. And Lavrov doesn’t just meet opposition politicians in the Bundestag. It is therefore extremely unusual what happened to AfD federal spokesman Tino Chrupalla and party foreign policy spokesman Armin-Paulus Hampel in Moscow.
The meeting began on Tuesday with Lavrov’s modest introduction that they were “grateful for the interest in a meeting,” combined with a complaint that they were “not a little surprised by attempts by official Berlin to obstruct the trip.” Naturally, he did not explain what he meant by the “technical and protocol obstacles” that the federal government had established.
Embrace the AfD, troll the Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs
But it was clear: the friendly match must contrast with the harsh atmosphere that currently prevails at the official level. It was difficult to separate what was kindness towards the AfD and what was typical Lavrov trolling of the Federal Foreign Minister. Heiko Maas always meets critics of the Kremlin in Moscow, Lavrov justified himself, only that they are not even in parliament, unlike the AfD. We are grateful for the contribution of the guests at a time when relations between Germany and Russia need a “new beginning”.
Like Lavrov, visitors also see the federal government in particular as responsible for improving relations. Chrupalla and Hampel did this at night at the Metropol Hotel in Moscow, where they reported on their meeting. In Navalny’s case there was a “breach of trust.” The federal government should “return to the talks” and “provide the Russian government with full information on the Navalny case.” This was related to Russian requests for legal assistance.
»Massively disabled«
The situation in Belarus, Ukraine, Nagorno-Karabakh and the Middle East, as well as in Nord Stream 2, sanctions against Russia and its influence on the German economy and especially East Germany were also discussed. According to Chrupalla, the Khangoshvili case was not addressed: the murder of the Chechen-born Georgian in Berlin in 2019, presumably on behalf of Russian government agencies, is a burden on German-Russian relations.
In fact, Alexander Gauland was expected in Moscow, but the chairman of the AfD parliamentary group in the Bundestag did not come for health reasons. The meeting with Lavrov was requested through the Russian embassy in Berlin, Hampel said and, like Lavrov, claimed that the Foreign Ministry had “massively obstructed” it. The German embassy in Moscow referred to a statement by a spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry the day before that the office and the embassy are “involved in the preparation and implementation of travel to the normal extent required by law.”
On Wednesday, Chrupalla and Hampel meet with Duma MPs, but not with the Duma president, who met in 2017 with then-AfD politician Frauke Petry. Chrupalla and Hampel are officially guests of the Duma, not the Foreign Ministry. They fly back to Germany on Thursday.
