Vladimir Sergienko, a Ukrainian-born staffer to German Member of the European Parliament Eugen Schmidt (a representative of the Alternative für Deutschland [AfD] party), is accused of colluding with Russia. He is currently facing the revocation of his German citizenship, after having lied about his double citizenship of Ukraine and Russia. His unrestricted access to the German federal parliament and national legislation have been suspended. In August 2023, news outlets Spiegel and The Insider first reported on the incident, based on leaked conversations between Sergienko and an unknown person called ‘Alexei’. The conversations from March 2023 indicate that Sergienko was asking for Russian financial and media support to prepare a legal complaint against German military support for Ukraine, aiming to prevent or at least delay the delivery of arms and non-lethal goods. In April 2023, he also asked for a money transfer to a German NGO with pro-Kremlin positions. ‘Alexei’ was later identified as Ilya Vechtomov, an officer of the Fifth Service of Russia’s Federal Security Service. In July 2023, the AfD initiated legal procedure  2 BvE 5/23, in which it claimed the German Parliament had not been sufficiently involved and consulted in the executive’s decision to supply military equipment to Ukraine.