Dossier Center: Russia promoted a deputy of a far-right German party in the Bundestag elections

The Dossier Center (investigative project of businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky) found out that Russia may have interfered in the German parliamentary elections in 2017 by supporting the candidate of the far-right Alternative for Germany party Markus Frohnmeier.

The investigators came into possession of the correspondence of Rear Admiral and veteran of the Federation Council Petr Premyak, who in 2017, in one of the letters, allegedly proposed to the presidential administration a plan of measures to form a “network of politicians loyal to Russia in Europe”, and also spoke about the possibility of holding the German Bundestag “ absolutely controlled" deputy.

“Probability of getting into the Bundestag: high. Needed: campaign support. <...> Bottom line: the Bundestag will have its own, absolutely controlled deputy. Moreover, with the help of it, our people will be able to open an NGO registered in the Bundestag, through which it will be possible to promote pro-Russian logics, ”the letter said, cited by the Dossier Center.

When sending the letter, he indicated several numbers, including the five-digit number of ATS-2, a government communication. Premyak himself, in a conversation with Dozhd, could not remember whether he had submitted proposals for working with Europe to the AP: “Maybe yes, but I don’t even remember about it. Maybe it was a one-time event."

The letter was addressed to “Sergei Alexandrovich” – according to the Dossier Center, it could have been an employee of the Presidential Administration Sergei Sokolov, who in one of the decrees was named the head of the department of the presidential administration for foreign policy. “Sokolov is a well-known specialist in narrow circles, who is highly regarded. He brought MEPs to the elections in Crimea,” a source close to the Presidential Administration told Dozhd.

Details about the project, as follows from the letter, were supposed to be obtained from “Alexander Olegovich Kirpichev”, a columnist for Izvestia, who confirmed to Dozhd that he knew Premyak and Frohnmeier, but did not admit his participation in the drafting of the document.

As a result, Markus Fronmeier was elected to the Bundestag from the Alternative for Germany party, which claims that anti-Russian sanctions are harmful to the German economy. Frohnmeier was referred to by the German media as "a central figure for the AfD's ties to Russia and Eastern Europe". It is known that he is married to a former employee of Izvestia, Daria Tsoi.

In 2016, Fronmeier visited Crimea to attend the Second Yalta Economic Forum. According to the center, he supported an art project called "Thank God, we do not live in America." In addition, the politician was an observer at the presidential elections in Russia in March 2018. Then he stated that he "checked everything as if it were in our own, German elections."