Germany's far-right AfD accused of gathering information for the Kremlin(www.politico.eu)
14 pointsby robtherobbera month ago1 comment
  • like_any_othera month ago
    > AfD leaders frequently take positions favorable to the Kremlin, favoring a renewal of economic ties and gas imports and a cease of weapons aid for Ukraine. Their political opponents, however, have frequently accused them of acting not from conviction alone — but at the behest of Moscow. Greens lawmaker Irene Mihalic, for instance, last month called the party Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “trojan horse” in Germany.

    If Politico has a an article calling the Green party's opposition to nuclear power a "position favorable to the Kremlin", I couldn't find it.

    • OKRainbowKida month ago
      Why would you expect to find that? It doesn't make sense.

      And accusing Politico, an Axel Springer brand, of being biased for the German green party is quite ironic.

      • like_any_othera month ago
        > Why would you expect to find that? It doesn't make sense.

        Can you explain why it doesn't make sense? Closing nuclear plants, which forces replacing them with fossil fuels, which come from Russia, seems quite plain to me, and was entirely predictable (and was in fact predicted) ahead of time. Can you point out where I am making an error?

        • croesa month ago
          They weren’t forced to replace nuclear with fossil energy. They wanted solar and photovoltaics but the past administration favored cheap gas and oil from russia. They actively hindered the expansion of renewable energy sources. The greens where in early opposition to the energy deals with Russia.
          • like_any_othera month ago
            > They wanted solar and photovoltaics

            lol. Germany still used ~40% fossil fuels and another ~8% in "biomass" (unclear how much of that meant cutting down forests) in 2020 - did the Greens think 40% of German electricity consumption in renewables would magically materialize only after nuclear power plants were shut down, that's why they didn't want to promote renewables first and shutting down nuclear only after fossil fuels were eliminated from the grid?

            > the past administration favored cheap gas and oil from russia

            So it was Merkel's CDU that did Russian bidding, and the Greens were just useful idiots?

        • OKRainbowKida month ago
          I'll explain my reasoning, after you show that the decision to decommission nuclear plants (which was made about 10 years ago, by the conservative CDU) led to a significant increase in fossil imports from Russia, and that nuclear power would reduce dependency on Russia. As far as I'm aware, Russia is also an important source for nuclear fuel.

          Additionally, just from a purely economic perspective, nuclear energy is not very competitive (if not just very expensive).

          Also, just going by actual geostrategic standpoints, you would be hard pressed to find sympathy for Putins Russia in the green party, probably the least amongst all significant parties in Germany.

          That's why I have a hard time understanding your original comment.

          • like_any_othera month ago
            > As far as I'm aware, Russia is also an important source for nuclear fuel.

            I couldn't find a source on where Germany got its fuel, but did find that Canada, Kazakhstan, and Australia are also nuclear fuel producers, so at the least they had options.

            But supposing they did get their fuel from Russia - nuclear fuel [1] costs $1.5 per MWh [2], while natural gas (the cheapest fossil fuel) costs $13.2 per MWh. So Russia gets ~TEN TIMES more money per MWh if selling gas vs. nuclear fuel.

            > find sympathy

            Let me know how much effect sympathy has compared to diverting capital into Russia.

            [1] Only the fuel, so this does not include the full cost of operating a nuclear plant, and the electricity produced is thus more expensive, but this is what Russia would get paid.

            [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_pla...

            [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas_prices

    • croesa month ago
      Did the Greens take trips to Russia like many AfD members did and still do?