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Natalia RomanyshynLike Mirror Twins. Propensity of Right-Wing and Left-Wing Bundestag MPs for Russian Narratives on War in UkraineTEXTY has analyzed the tweets on Ukraine send by the members of the German
Bundestag from two opposition parties: the socialist Left (Die Linke) and the
nationalist Alternative for Germany (AfD). The politicians from the both parties have criticized the German federal
government for supplying arms to Ukraine and imposing sanctions on Russia.
Although their positions are remarkably similar, there are still some things
that set them apart. It is the left-wing Die Linke who are the most passionate
advocates of talks between Kyiv and Moscow. In turn, the right-wing AfD exploit the subject of Ukrainian refugees and
spread narratives which we identified as anti-Ukrainian. More detailed
definitions are provided below. Serhii Sumlennyi, the Director of European Resilience Initiative Center in
Berlin, commented on the reason of this phenomenon. He believes that such unity
stems from the anti-establishment stand of the both parties. Such anti-system parties
as Die Linke and AfD unite their followers by claiming that the current
government is concealing the truth and that NATO wages a global war against
everything that is good, and, therefore, must be contained. An alliance with
Putin fits into such a model perfectly as those parties agree with the Russian
president who argues that Western democracies are mere imitations, and that
Russia is there to offer an alternative approach which promises “the real truth
and freedom”. "Peace" and no weapons Let us take a look at which members of the two parliamentary groups were
the most active contributors of opinions on Ukraine. Most of the AfD members (79% of Twitter account holders from the group)
mentioned Ukraine in some way in their tweets. The members of the other group, Die Linke, who tweeted on Ukraine were not
as numerous — approximately 60%. However, those less numerous left-wing members
contributed more than all their right-wing colleagues combined. Overall, it was
Die Linke members that sent the largest number of tweets on Ukraine: 220 versus
170 from AfD. Having analyzed the content of the tweets, we have singled out seven categories
of narratives regarding Ukraine: ⦁ Calls to
halt military aid and arms supplies to Ukraine ⦁ Calls to
initiate peace talks and calls to cease fire and resort to diplomacy with the
aggressor ⦁
Anti-Ukrainian narratives such as calls to deny Ukraine NATO/EU membership,
negative statements about Ukrainian refugees, criticism of the Ukrainian
counteroffensive and blaming Ukraine for the decline of the level of wealth in
Germany. ⦁ Pro-Russian
narratives — i.e. statements which spread Russian propaganda on the blowing up
of the gas pipelines in the North Sea and Kakhovska HPP, and shifting the blame
for the war from Russia onto the West ⦁
Anti-sanctions narratives such as criticism of the anti-Russian economic
sanctions ⦁ Calls to
grant asylum to Russians such as calls to admit Russian citizens who are
fleeing Russia to avoid the draft and support the performances of Russian
cultural figures. ⦁ Criticism
of the activities of the former Ukrainian ambassador to Germany Andrii Melnyk The miscellaneous group “Mentions of Ukraine” includes messages which do
not match any of the above categories. The most popular topics of the tweets posted by German MPs were calls to
halt arms supplies to Ukraine and commence peace talks with Russia. Most of the
tweets posted by the MPs followed those topics and resulted in the most active
interaction with the social media users who liked, re-tweeted, and discussed
the statements in the comments. Both parties have criticized the German federal government for the decision
to supply arms to Ukraine and have argued that the government must focus
diplomacy and peace talks: “Today, the German Bundestag has approved a
large-scale shipment of arms to Ukraine. Other parliamentary groups with the
exception of the left-wing MPs, employed aggressive rhetoric. They must return
to peace rhetoric! #niewiederkrieg”, wrote Karsten Hilse (AfD). They assured that arms supplies only contribute to the risk of global
escalation and the spread of war onto Western Europe and Germany in
particular: “Most Germans are strongly against arms supplies,
especially main battle tanks, to #Ukraine and not without reason since the
potential of escalation has been unprecedented. We must do whatever it takes to
prevent a war in the heart of Europe! #AfD”, tweeted Gerold Otten (AfD). Coercion to initiating peace talks with the aggressor and seeking a
diplomatic solution to the Russo-Ukrainian was another hot topic of the
tweets: “Even the leading military experts agree that peace can only be
reached at the negotiation table. The Federal Republic of Germany must stay
committed to achieving cease fire and supporting the international peace
initiative to finally put an end to this war”, wrote Amira Mohamed Ali (Die
Linke). Immediate negotiations with Russia The left-wing MPs actively shared the “Manifesto for Peace” petition
urging to sign it. The petition was a collaborative effort of the left-wing
member of the German Bundestag Sahra Wagenknecht and journalist Alice
Schwarzer: “This manifesto and the rally for peace are extremely
important to defuse the atmosphere of military hysteria. After the end of the
Cold War, the West started to violate international law”, wrote Gregor Gysi
(Die Linke). Sahra Wagenknecht is a German politician who is known for her sympathy for
the Kremlin. In particular, she appealed for dissolving NATO and establishing a
security alliance to include Russia. She also called for reinstating Russia as
a "G7 member”. Alice Schwarzer is the founder of EMMA magazine and a well-known German
feminist. However, her recent rhetoric has been getting decidedly pro-Russian. According to Deutsche Welle, a number of German media
referred to the petition, in which the authors had called for immediate
negotiations with Russia claiming that Ukraine “does not stand a
fighting chance against the world's largest nuclear power”, a “Manifesto
for Obedience”. Among all the German MPs who were active on Twitter, Sahra Wagenknecht was
by far the most prolific (44%) in terms of posting on Ukraine. She uses her
Twitter page to rally support of her manifesto and call on Ukraine to engage in
peace talks. The MP also vehemently opposes the supplies of ammunition, fighter
planes and tanks to Ukraine. According to Ms Wagenknecht, it is the West that is to blame for the
ongoing war in Ukraine — not the Russian troops on Ukrainian soil. In her
opinion, expecting the Russian army to withdraw from Ukraine is futile —
therefore, Ukraine and its allies must accept the fact that such expectations
are absolutely unrealistic: “Yesterday, I attended #HartAberFair: Those
who agree to negotiate with Russia only after the last Russian has left Crimea
must admit support of further escalation and many more years of war to claim
countless victims and eventually wipe Ukraine off the map" (the
link is here but the article is already deleted). Furthermore, the MP supported the Russian propagandist narrative by blaming
Ukraine for the blowing up of the Nord Stream gas pipelines: “ARD, ZEIT, SWR
have confirmed the facts published by Washington Post: The German government
was aware of the attacks on Nord Stream which had been planned by Ukraine. Why
didn't they prevent the attacks by taking the appropriate measures?” This narrative was spread by another active Twitter user Klaus Ernst who is
a member of The Left party: “According to Washington Post, the attacks
were carried out by a Ukrainian national. It was Ukrainian commandos that
destroyed the pipelines of Nord Stream 1 and 2. The CIA had been warned at an
early stage of the operation. This explains why the German government wanted to
bury the facts. It was a hostile act of Ukraine against Germany. The sentiment
may change”. At the same time, Ernst opposed the supplies of arms to Ukraine and the
anti-Russian sanctions. He urged Ukraine to commence peace talks immediately
and criticized the Ukrainian government and Ukrainians in general: “Zelenskyy
is obviously pushing us into a nuclear war. Such behavior is absolutely
irresponsible. It is the Russians who are the bad guys in this war, but this
fact does not mean that the Ukrainians are the good guys here”.
The “Asylum for Russians” The “Asylum for Russians” narrative was most actively pushed by Mark Jongen
of AfD and Jan Korte of The Left. Mr Jongen claimed art to be beyond politics and spread the call “No
#Sippenhaft for Russian artists!...” through
his Twitter account. The term "Sippenhaft" means “collective
responsibility”. Such was his reaction to the events of 2 March 2022 when
the mayor of Munich removed Russian citizen Valery Gergiev from the post of the
chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic after his refusal to denounce
Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and fired the Russian diva Anna Netrebko, also a
citizen of the aggressor state. In turn, Mr Korte fired broadsides at the German government for doing too
little to support Russian draft dodgers and called to provide them with more
opportunities of finding asylum in Germany: “I find it cynical that the
German federal government @spdde, @Die_Gruenen and @fdp is destroying Putin's
army by supplying arms, but refuses to offer asylum to deserters who do not
want to join the Russian army for reasons of conscience. Did somebody forget
their promises made in September of 2022?” Trouble for Ukraine According to the results of Deutschlandtrend survey published at the end of
June, “Alternative for
Germany” (AfD) had become more popular: 19 percent of the German voters said they would choose it among others. If the election to the German Bundestag had been held at the end of June,
the right-wing populists would have come second getting ahead of the
social-democrats (17%), The Greens (15%) and the free democrats (6%) which
constitute the current ruling coalition. The strengthening and widespread representation of this populist party
which broadcasts pro-Kremlin narratives would negatively affect Ukraine's
position in Europe and could undermine Europe's support of Kyiv The left-wing flank is also getting stronger. In the middle of the summer
the board of the Left Party (Die Linke) decided to finally part ways with Sahra
Wagenknecht, the undisputed star of the party. According to our study, she was
the MP with the highest percentage (44%) of tweets dedicated to Ukraine among
all her posts that we had analyzed. Today, Wagenknecht
is by far the most famous and popular figure in Die Linke compared to the other
members of her party. Her
future looks bright as she is getting more and more popular. According to the
poll held by Kantar sociological institute in the spring of 2023, if Sarah
Wagenknecht had created her own party during the representative survey, 19% of
the respondents would have voted for the new political project. Hypothetically, it might become Germany's new political party with an
agenda built on reconciliation and friendship with Russia. The Methodology The data for the analysis were downloaded in the period from 24 February
2022 to 7 July 2023, 100 messages for each person. For the especially active
Twitters, the last one hundred messages were considered. Overall, we analyzed over 7,000 tweets and retweets of which 5% pertained
to Ukraine. Our attention was focused on 84 MPs since the other 33 members of
the German Bundestag either did not have Twitter accounts, did not state them
on the official website of the institution, or their last tweet predated 24
February 2022. To identify the relevant posts — i.e. whose content was related to Ukraine,
BERTopic topic modeling and ChatGPT as well as key word searching methods were
used. And, finally, once the tweets had been translated into Ukrainian with
DeepL, the resulting posts were subjected to manual validation and content analysis. 21 09 2023 |