The far right and the Russian war in Ukraine: Insights from Germany

From February 24, 2022, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine became the dominant topic in European politics and public debate, also in the context of far-right politics: In response to the invasion, numerous far-right individuals and organizations published statements and assessments in text and image. While the European far right was long considered as pro-Russian “Putinists”, unexpectedly, it soon became known that violent nationalists were going to war on the Ukrainian side. This article analyzes the political positioning of some key actors from the German far-right scene. It examines the far-right positions in the months and years before the invasion, the immediate reactions after February 24, 2022, and developments throughout the first year of the war. In line with international approaches to the far right, which emphasizes the diversity of its organizational forms, also and especially in Germany, the article focuses on both parties such as the Alternative for Germany (AfD), the National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) and The Third Way (III. Weg), and actors in right-wing extremist movements and subcultural networks such as the Identitarian Movement (IM) under Martin Sellner, Götz Kubitschek's Institute for State Politics (IfS), the associated magazine Sezession, the Dresden Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the Occident (PEGIDA) and the monthly “Compact: Magazine for Sovereignty” with editor-in-chief Jürgen Elsässer. It thus mainly illuminates actors who reject violence, but also comparatively violent groups such as III. Weg. The qualitative content analysis builds on an original empirical corpus of texts, primarily generated from the websites and communication channels of the respective actors and networks, as well as journalistic texts and a few scientific publications. The aim of the article is to identify and classify similarities and differences among different actors and over time. To this end, it addresses issues and controversies that have shaped far-right reactions to the war. In particular, the analysis of the data points to the crucial role of long-standing ideological and rhetorical characteristics of the German far right, such as anti-(US) Americanism and anti-imperialism, nationalism or ethnopluralism and racism, as well as the rhetorical delegitimization of the Federal Republic of Germany.