AfD Opens Back Channel to Moscow on Nord Stream as Merz Polls Collapse
Germany's far-right opposition held separate talks with Gazprom's chief and a senior Putin adviser on pipeline revival in early June, as the governing coalition's approval cratered.
Germany's Alternative für Deutschland sent its foreign policy chief to Moscow in early June 2026 for meetings with Gazprom's chief executive and a senior Kremlin adviser, opening an energy back channel at the precise moment the governing coalition is losing ground in polls. The talks focused on restoring Nord Stream gas flows, adding a new geopolitical variable to the European supply outlook.7,6
Markus Frohnmaier, the AfD's foreign policy spokesman, met Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller — described as a long-time confidant of President Vladimir Putin — and separately held discussions with Kirill Dmitriev, one of Putin's senior advisers, during his early-June 2026 visit to Russia.7,6
The political arithmetic gives those contacts real weight. Chancellor Friedrich Merz had just 13% of Germans saying they were satisfied with his work as of May 2026, with only 11% rating his government's performance positively, according to polling published by the Economist. The CDU/CSU has slid to 23% in surveys, down from the 29% it won at last year's federal election, while the SPD sits at 13% after being badly beaten in two recent state polls.5
For a party explicitly committed to restoring German-Russian energy ties, a governing coalition in that kind of trouble represents an opening. If the polling gap widens, the AfD could hold enough parliamentary influence in the next government to push for a supply-route reset.5
The energy dependency those ties represent remains large. Before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Germany sourced 55% of its natural gas from Russian pipelines; that share has since been cut to around 35%, achieved through emergency LNG procurement, demand destruction and fuel-switching at a cost of roughly 15 billion euros in EU support to meet storage targets.4,3
ICE Endex TTF front-month gas traded at 43.83 euros per megawatt-hour on Wednesday (2026-07-01), a level consistent with the current supply-adequate environment. Urals crude traded at $58.43 on the same day, against $72.27 for ICE Brent crude front-month — a discount reflecting the accumulated weight of western sanctions on Russian barrels, and one that would narrow under any scenario in which Russian energy exports recovered political legitimacy in Europe.
Chancellor Merz signalled his own frustration with energy costs in May 2026, pledging to reverse what he called Germany's "naive" energy policies and to do everything in his power to protect German industry.2 The government has yet to produce a lower-cost supply alternative. Germany's environment ministry told Montel in May 2026 that it does not support a return to nuclear power, even as Economy Minister Katherina Reiche declined to rule it out.1
The resulting gap — cheaper energy, but not from Russia and not from nuclear — leaves German industry exposed to precisely the argument the AfD is making. Industrial users have carried higher costs since 2022 without the offsetting supply security the Merz government promised.
The AfD's Russia outreach is a calculated bet that cost pressure will eventually override supply-security principles in German politics. The infrastructure obstacle is substantial: two of the four Nord Stream pipes were destroyed in the September 2022 sabotage, and reconstruction would require years of work and capital that no western major has any incentive to commit under current sanctions and reputational conditions.7
The near-term signal is Merz's approval trajectory. At 13% in May 2026, the CDU/CSU has limited political room before party pressure triggers a course correction. Any shift toward negotiated energy arrangements with Moscow would push TTF lower and compress the Urals-Brent discount — two moves that would register in prices long before any pipe carried gas.5