“Poland could be a threat to us,” German far-right leader says

Edited by: Julian Kossoff

13.11.2025

Tymon Miller

AfD’s co-leader said Warsaw blocked the extradition of a “terrorist” to Germany. (GettyImages)

A co-leader of Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party said that Poland could become a threat to Germany, while dismissing any immediate danger from Russia.

“I don’t see any threat to Germany from Russia at present,” Tino Chrupalla said on Tuesday evening on the Markus Lanz talk show on Germany’s public broadcaster ZDF.
“Of course, Poland could also become a threat to us,” he added. Asked whether Poland could be as dangerous to Germany as Russia, he replied: “We see that Poland’s interests differ from Germany’s.”
Chrupalla referred to a recent case in which a Warsaw court blocked the extradition to Germanyof Volodymyr Zhuravlov, a Ukrainian national suspected of involvement in the 2022 Nord Stream pipeline attack.
“We are seeing double standards on the Nord Stream issue,” he said. “Poland did not extradite a wanted criminal, a terrorist, to Germany. And how did the German government react? It does nothing. It says, ‘OK, that can happen.’”
The AfD leader also argued that the West shares responsibility for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
He claimed that before the full-scale war, “the Russian minority in Ukraine was persecuted,” and “decisive mistakes were made not only by Russia, but also by the West.”
Chrupalla also dismissed the possibility of a nuclear threat from Moscow, saying: “Putin has never threatened a nuclear attack on Germany.”