AfD politician from Saxony-Anhalt, Hans-Thomas Tillschneider, was noticed having a Russian army mug in his office. He is one of the most rabidly pro-Russian members of the AfD.
For Russia-supporters, either on the political Right or Left, it was never really about peace and diplomacy. This was a smoke-screen all the way.
At the beginning, they argued against helping Ukraine claiming that Ukraine has no chance and that it's a pawn, a client-state of Western powers. Since Ukraine doesn't stand a chance against Russia, the argument went, Ukraine and the West need to make concessions to alleviate the suffering of Ukrainians. Their overarching claim was that Ukraine didn't have an agency.
But then, as Ukraine started hitting back. Over time, Ukraine's responses have become stronger and stronger to an extent that one could reasonably conclude that Ukraine managed to change the tide of this war.
And here is when peaceniks and other Russia-sympathizers revealed their true face. A conspicuous moment came when Ukraine implemented the Operation Spiderweb last year. Suddenly, the same voices that until then were arguing that Ukraine has no agency and is helpless, began screaming that Ukraine is escalating the situation and dragging the world into a conflagration. The same voices began calling the West, above all US, to actively prevent Ukraine from fighting!
Later on, as Ukraine's drone strikes against Russian refineries and marketplaces increased in quality and quantity, members of AfD, among them Alice Weidel, openly claimed that such strikes are "against German interests" and that Ukraine must be prevented from carrying out such attacks.
So which is it? Is Ukraine a pawn of the West that has no chance against Russia? Or is it a formidable military force with its own agency that needs to be stopped? Suddenly the roles were reversed: if at the beginning Ukraine was the "hapless pawn" of the West, now the West became Ukraine's "pawn".
This change of rhetoric of Russia-sympathizers, in fact a 180-degree change, reveals that they were arguing in bad faith from the very beginning. Their concern wasn't really that Ukraine is weak and therefore helping it prolongs its agony - a specious argument in itself, but that's beside the point. Their goal is not peace or diplomacy. What they truly want is Russian victory! They want that Russia prevails over Ukraine, and by extension over the West.
They hate Ukraine, not because it is a pawn, but because it is powerful enough to successfully resist their beloved Russia. They are not concerned about the prolongation of the war as such. What they are worried about is that their beloved Russia might lose.
Anyone who expresses any kind of sympathy towards Russia, anyone who even slightly doubts and "contextualizes" Ukraine's cause should be named for what he is - a scumbag, a traitor and an enemy of the civilized world. Because, as the case of Hans-Thomas Tillschneider reveals, deep inside what these people want is not peace as such, but "peace" on Russia's terms - i.e., Russian victory. Such people need to be not only shunned but actively prosecuted. Such people should not be allowed to participate in the public life of Western societies.
https://t.me/nixjeelvy/13115?single