German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck has agreed to stop accusing upstart populist party Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) of being bought by the Kremlin after the party took legal action against him in court.
Habeck, a Green, had made the accusations against the BSW and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) during a state election campaign in August.
The BSW strongly opposes German military aid to Ukraine and is accused by some critics of repeating Russian propaganda in its rhetoric.
According to the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, Habeck said during a speech in Dresden in August: “Making yourself pay for your opinion, buying votes on the Internet, building up troll armies, having your opinion bought: that’s disgusting and it’s not decent, and we know that AfD and BSW are paid in the same way.”
The BSW took legal action over the comments. Habeck has now signed the associated cease and desist declaration, a Green Party spokeswoman said on Monday.
Sahra Wagenknecht, the founder and namesake of the BSW, wrote on X: “Lies have short legs. (…) It is good that the courts have stopped this spread of fake news.”
According to the Greens, Habeck’s statement referred to questions about the BSW’s funding and the fact that the BSW “has not provided the promised transparency about where the money actually comes from.”
During his speech, Habeck, the leader of the Greens, acknowledged that the government is not doing everything correctly regarding Ukraine.
“But,” the Süddeutsche Zeitung quoted Habeck, “no one has been completely bribed – unlike the AfD and BSW.”