Regional elections in Germany have laid bare a swell of opposition to the government's stance on the conflict in Ukraine at a time when Berlin is already under pressure over its aid for Kyiv.Germany has been the second largest contributor of aid to Ukraine after the US,

To its critics, the AfD is the acceptable face of Right-wing extremism in Germany: its members have been engulfed in a series of scandals, including spying for China, downplaying Hitler’s war crimes, attending secret migration summits with neo-Nazis and taking suspicious payments from Russia.

As the Russia-friendly BSW part has become the new pivotal player in Eastern Germany, the country’s Russia hawks appear poised to make concessions and tone down their rhetoric to form stable governments.