Putin Doesn’t Need to Win in Ukraine to Win in Europe

Sunday’s elections in Germany were not federal elections, and Alternative for Germany did not “win Germany.” In Berlin, the left-wing Die Linke came first. But in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the AfD won around 38 percent of the vote, leaving the Social Democrats behind and inflicting a historically weak result on Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s CDU. Two weeks earlier, the AfD had also won convincingly in Saxony-Anhalt. These are no longer isolated episodes of German provincial politics. They show a major shift in the way politics is playing out in Europe.

The story of these elections is not only the story of immigration, dissatisfaction with the government, or fear of cultural change, as Albania’s pseudo-analysts — and many of their counterparts in Europe — try to present it. Today’s politics is the story of energy, of prices, of the war in Ukraine, and of a Russian strategy that has for years sought to exploit precisely the weaknesses of Western democracies.

Modern warfare is not fought only with tanks. History, looked at carefully, shows that Putin’s war front is not Ukraine — but neither is it what many claim, that Putin will attack another NATO country after Ukraine.

The European Union today defines Russian hybrid activity as a combination of sabotage, cyberattacks, interference in infrastructure, information manipulation, and attempts to undermine democratic and electoral processes. The European Parliament has gone even further, declaring that there is evidence of Russian support for extremist forces and of efforts to build networks of influence within European politics.

That does not mean that the millions of Germans who vote for the AfD are instruments of Vladimir Putin. Such a conclusion would be not only unfair but also politically blind. People vote for real reasons: prices, immigration, pensions, security, dissatisfaction with political elites and, increasingly, the economy.

The most effective strategy of a foreign power is not to invent discontent. It is to find it, to feed it, and then to steer it.

Germany is the best example. For decades it built an important part of its industrial model on relatively cheap Russian energy. Before the war, more than half of the gas it imported came from Russia. The Bundesbank notes that heavy dependence on Russian gas left the German economy particularly exposed to the shock of 2022. At the height of the crisis, the price of gas on the European market reached around 12 times the 2019 average.

And there is an even more important detail. The Bundesbank wrote this year that Russia had begun reducing gas supplies to Europe as early as 2021, before the invasion of Ukraine, using energy supplies to gain geopolitical influence.

So energy was not merely a victim of the war. It is part of the politics.

Europe later managed to dramatically reduce its dependence on Russia. But the economic and political price of this decoupling did not disappear. Today the continent is again experiencing high energy prices and relatively low gas reserves. The causes of the current crisis are broader and also include the conflict in the Middle East and difficulties in LNG supply. Yet in Germany the cost of energy is once again a central political topic.

And here the AfD offers an extraordinarily simple answer: bring back Russian gas.

Just two days before Sunday’s elections, Reuters reported that AfD leaders and one of Putin’s top economic advisers were preparing for talks on the possibility of returning Russian gas to Germany. The AfD is demanding the removal of energy sanctions on Russia and the restoration of economic cooperation. In June, a senior AfD official was in Saint Petersburg, where he met with Gazprom executives and with Putin’s adviser Kirill Dmitriev, and publicly argued for repairing Nord Stream and restoring Russian supplies.

This is why the debate about the AfD is not limited only to immigrants and Muslims — or, more precisely, because the debate about them is simply a mask for the real problems.

Anti-immigration rhetoric is the most visible part of the AfD’s political offer. But behind it there is a much more important geopolitical package: opposition to sanctions against Russia, opposition to part of the support for Ukraine, a demand for normalizing relations with Moscow and restoring Russian energy cooperation. Analyses of German politics have noted that the AfD is today the main force in the Bundestag that persistently demands a return to direct cooperation with Russia.

Here the AfD’s interests and the Kremlin’s interests do not need to be identical for the result to be useful to Moscow.

Putin does not need to convince Germans that the invasion of Ukraine was just. That would be a much harder task. It is enough for him if a growing number of Europeans reach a much more practical conclusion: the war costs too much, sanctions cost too much, energy costs too much, and perhaps it is better to do business with Russia again.

That is a far more valuable victory than any propaganda slogan.

There are also more direct cases. The European Parliament has spoken of credible accusations that European politicians were paid to spread Russian propaganda. In 2024 it specifically mentioned the case of AfD politician Petr Bystron and the “Voice of Europe” network, which Czech authorities identified as part of a Russian influence operation. The AfD has rejected the broader accusations that it acts as an instrument of Moscow, and a 2025 Bundestag debate showed how fierce this political clash remains.

But hybrid warfare is not measured only in envelopes of cash, secret agents, or internet farms.

Its most sophisticated form is the one in which the aggressor’s interest coincides with the citizen’s real dissatisfaction.

If a German worker looks at the energy bill and asks why gas costs so much, that is not propaganda. The bill is real. If a factory loses competitiveness because of expensive energy, the problem is real. If a pensioner worries about the cost of living, the worry is real.

Propaganda begins afterwards, when a complex problem is offered a single explanation: sanctions are to blame, Ukraine, Brussels, and governments that refuse cheap Russian gas.

That is politically far more powerful than a Russian television channel.

And this is not happening only in Germany. In France, Italy, Slovakia, Hungary, and other countries, parties seeking a softer relationship with Moscow have found fertile ground among voters tired of inflation, war, military spending, and economic uncertainty. They are not all the same, and their relations with Russia differ. But for the Kremlin the strategic result could be the same: a Europe more divided over Ukraine, more skeptical of sanctions, and less willing to pay the cost of its own security.

Putin, in the end, does not necessarily need a pro-Russian Europe. A Europe that cannot agree on Russia is enough for him.

This is why the result in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania should be seen beyond the borders of that Land. The AfD did not take power in Germany on Sunday. But a political force demanding a radical change in German policy toward Russia won nearly four in ten votes in one part of the country.

That is a German electoral data point. But it is also strategic information for Moscow.

The war in Ukraine is fought with drones, missiles, and soldiers. The other war is fought with the gas bill, with the social media algorithm, with voter fatigue, and with the promise that everything can become cheaper again if Europe changes course.

On that front there is no battle line visible on a map. And precisely for that reason it is much harder to understand who is winning.

What is even more unclear is Washington’s stance. After the AfD’s victory in Saxony-Anhalt, Donald Trump did not react like an American president watching with concern the strengthening of a European party seeking an easing of sanctions on Russia and a change of course on Ukraine. He welcomed the result, called it a great success, and explained it mainly as opposition to German immigration policy. The reaction caused displeasure in Berlin, precisely because it was perceived as interference in Germany’s internal political debate.

Here a paradox is created that Europe has not yet clarified. For decades, the Western strategy toward Moscow rested on a relatively clear axis: the United States and Europe might have disagreements over trade, military spending, or energy, but toward Russia there was a shared strategic interest. Today this certainty is no longer so self-evident. When the American president welcomes the success of a political force demanding a completely different German course toward Moscow, the question is no longer only what Putin is doing to divide Europe. The question is how united the Western alliance itself remains in the face of this strategy.

And precisely here hybrid warfare becomes even more complicated. Because Putin may not need to win militarily in Kyiv, to conquer another NATO country, or to convince Europeans to love Russia. It may be enough for him that Europe becomes divided, that support for Ukraine turns into a political burden, that sanctions are seen more and more as the cause of economic problems, and that Washington and European capitals are no longer sure whether they are fighting the same battle.

If he gets that far, Putin doesn’t need to win in Ukraine to win in Europe.