The far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) has been accused of trying to disclose sensitive information on arms supply routes to Ukraine and drone defences. Political opponents say the information could be of great interest to Russian intelligence in particular.

The charges were made against Ringo Mühlmann – an AfD politician in the state parliament of Thuringia. He has repeatedly asked regional authorities to disclose information about local drone defences and Western arms transports to Ukraine. In a written request submitted in September, he asked: “What information does the state government have about the extent of military transit transports through Thuringia since 2022 (broken down by year, type of transport [road, rail], number of transits, and known stops)?”

In June he filed eight inquiries in one day related to drones and the drone defence capabilities of the region’s police.

“One cannot help but get the impression that the AfD is working through a list of tasks assigned to it by the Kremlin with its inquiries,” Thuringian Interior Minister Georg Maier, told the newspaper Handelsblatt.

Mühlmann has emphatically denied the accusation, as has Tino Chrupalla – one of the party’s national leaders – who insisted the questions were all “legitimate”.

The AfD has frequently expressed support for positions favourable to the Kremlin, including arguing for the renewal of economic ties and gas imports from Russia. It has also opposed Western military support for Ukraine, calling on the German government to halt arms exports to Kyiv.

The party has seen its support surge in recent years and topped the polls in September with 27% – three points ahead of Chancellor Merz’s party, the CDU. It is also the second largest party in parliament.

Local AfD MPs have submitted more than 7,000 security-related inquiries since the beginning of 2020, according to a data analysis by Der Spiegel magazine.

Marc Henrichmann – the chairman of a parliamentary committee overseeing Germany’s intelligence services – said the flood of questions helps Russia piece together crucial information about the country’s military support for Ukraine.

“What I have regularly heard from various ministries is that individual inquiries are not really the problem,” he told POLITICO.

“But when you look at these individual inquiries side by side, you get a picture, for example, of travel routes, aid supplies, and military goods to or in the direction of Ukraine.”

Opponents suspect the AfD is in cahoots with the Kremlin, with the Green MP Irene Mihalic labelling the party as Vladimir Putin’s “trojan horse”.

Mühlmann has denied that he is following an assignment list “in the direction of Russia.”

He also argued that ministers are not obliged to reveal sensitive information that could pose a danger to German national security

Mühlmann said: “It is not up to me to limit my questions, but up to the minister to provide the answers.”

He added: “If at some point such an answer poses a danger or leads to espionage, then the espionage is not my fault, but the minister’s, because he has disclosed information that he should not have disclosed.”