Putin's Envoy Plans Talks with Germany's AfD on Resuming Russian Natural Gas Supplies
nashnova research
Kirill Dmitriev, Putin's chief economic envoy, is arranging talks with Germany's far-right AfD leadership — the core agenda is restarting Russian gas deliveries to Germany. This means → Moscow is trying to bypass Berlin's governing coalition and use energy as a lever inside German domestic politics.
Who is driving these talks?
Reuters, citing two people familiar with the matter, reports the meeting could happen as early as March 2027, with AfD co-leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla invited.
The Russian side is led by Kirill Dmitriev, who also runs Russia's sovereign wealth fund and met U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Moscow earlier this month.
Organizers want Witkoff and Kushner at the table too, with Israel, the UAE, or India as possible venues — but a senior U.S. official told Reuters neither man was informed or invited.
Why is AfD making "Russian gas" a campaign banner?
AfD is currently Germany's top-polling party, yet every mainstream party refuses to form a coalition with it.
Weidel has publicly called "cheap energy from Russia" the "secret of German manufacturing success" and in June urged an end to the Russian oil-and-gas boycott.
This means → AfD is repackaging the energy question as "pragmatic economics" to set itself apart from the mainstream security consensus — and to court voters angry about high energy prices.
AfD just won the largest seat share in Saxony-Anhalt; its next electoral test is in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern — the very state where the Nord Stream pipeline comes ashore.
What is the current state of Nord Stream?
The Nord Stream pipelines were damaged by explosions in September 2022; sections remain out of service. Reopening them is one agenda item for the planned talks.
In plain terms = before the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Russia supplied over a third of Germany's crude oil and more than half its natural gas. Once the pipelines were blown up, that supply line essentially went dead.
This reflects a deeper question: the talks are not just about energy trade — they are testing whether Europe's "de-Russification" policy has any room to soften.
Why is Germany's political mainstream reacting so sharply?
Green MP Michael Kellner said bluntly: "We cannot repeat the mistake — the last energy crisis cost us €50 billion. This would be betrayal. Putin is using AfD."
CDU lawmaker Roderich Kiesewetter warned the talks could embolden pro-Russia voices inside his own party, calling a Nord Stream reopening "a disaster for European security" that would isolate Germany.
This means → the establishment's fear is not one meeting — it is that the meeting cracks open a door, turning "buy Russian gas" from a political taboo into a debatable option.
Can this actually change anything?
AfD is not in government; any outcome from the talks would carry no direct policy force.
Yet the American Chamber of Commerce in Moscow welcomed the plan — president Robert Agee called it "a positive and timely step." Both AfD and Dmitriev's representatives declined to comment.
In plain terms = the real stakes are not the gas itself but Germany's political red line — "no cooperation with the far right." If AfD keeps winning state elections, the question is whether that red line can hold.
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