The Saxony-Anhalt election is a win for Russia’s Army, and 'Ostalgie'
The AfD has long cultivated Soviet ideological conditioning; now it's reaping the rewards.
Published in: Euractiv, 10. September 2026
Saxony-Anhalt’s election result has been widely read as a victory not only for Germany’s far-right AfD, but also for Moscow.
The Kremlin had reason to welcome it – almost half of voters backed parties campaigning to end military support for Ukraine and renew relations with Russia. The AfD won 43.8% and BSW 5.3%. Die Linke (8.6%) also opposes arms deliveries to Ukraine.
During the election, a Russian-linked disinformation campaign spread fabricated stories attacking CDU, Greens and SPD. Not only were AfD and BSW spared the smears, but Russian media also promoted both parties. Eastern Germany is receptive ground for pro-Russian sentiment. But the important question is how that ground was prepared.
Russia was anything but incidental. Election-day analysis identified peace in Europe as a key issue. Among all voters, 57% supported the AfD’s demand to stop supplying weapons to Ukraine, rising to 92% among AfD voters.
Both AfD and BSW present their position as one of “peace”, diplomacy and German non-involvement. In practice, this puts pressure on Ukraine and its Western supporters to end weapons deliveries and sanctions, restore economic relations with Moscow and import Russian gas. For BSW, this was almost the defining campaign theme.
With parts of the AfD, the gap between proclaimed neutrality and sympathy for Russia is clearer still. Shortly before the election, an NZZ journalist visited AfD deputy chairman Hans-Thomas Tillschneider and noticed a mug bearing a red star and “Army of Russia” in Cyrillic. Open support for Russia’s military apparently poses little electoral problem.
Part of the answer lies in Ostalgie. Both parties appeal to an idealised German Democratic Republic of social security, predictability, community and order. Russia has been incorporated into this imagined past. Soviet citizens were hardly universally loved in the GDR, yet the ideological image proved durable. For decades, the Soviet Union – largely synonymous with Russia – was presented as the home of a great culture and, crucially, a guarantor of peace. This image has been embedded in education and cultural policy.
In her 2022 essay on “Finlandisation” (the Cold War-era accommodation of Soviet interests by democratic Finland to preserve its independence), Finnish writer Sofi Oksanen described a related mechanism. Finland was far less dependent on Moscow than the GDR yet Soviet pressure shaped journalism, scholarship, culture and education. Such narratives survived long after the conditions that produced them and were only gradually confronted.
Reunified Germany extensively addressed the GDR regime itself, but paid far less attention to the legacy of Soviet ideological conditioning. For three decades after 1990, German policy was exceptionally Russia-friendly. Ideas such as “change through trade”, Nord Stream and a strategic partnership with Moscow therefore reinforced, rather than challenged, the inherited image of Russia as a fundamentally benign power.
Disappointment with the post-1990 order also matters. When liberal democracy is no longer experienced as successful, Russia’s authoritarianism becomes less of an obstacle, while a “strong” state, sovereignty and order grow more appealing.
The AfD has cultivated this terrain for years. At its 2017 “Russia Congress” in Magdeburg, speakers called for lifting sanctions and invoked a revival of the “Rapallo spirit” – the 1920s German-Soviet rapprochement that included secret military cooperation. The influential Kremlin-aligned neo-fascist philosopher Alexander Dugin featured prominently, with AfD politicians promoting his books and concepts. What looked like fringe politics nine years ago has moved towards the centre.
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania offers an instructive contrast. There, the traditionally Russia-friendly SPD under Manuela Schwesig remains competitive with the AfD. In the latest Infratest dimap poll, the AfD leads 35% to 32%. This suggests that occupying Russia-friendly political space can limit the AfD’s monopoly.
Germany’s establishment and media have long underestimated Russia as a domestic political issue, particularly in the East. The AfD’s success also reflects migration, dissatisfaction with the federal government and disillusionment with the post-reunification order. But polling shows that Russia and Ukraine were not peripheral: they formed part of the same broader rejection of current governance and Germany’s post-1990 settlement.
