"The Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend?" The Alleged Love Affair between the European Extreme Parties and Putin’s Russia

The main project headed by Jakub Wondreys deals broadly with the impact of the Russian (re)invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the start of Putin’s hybrid war with “the West” on European political parties. In this project, he mainly aims to evaluate who Putin's key allies in Europe are. In the wake of the (re)invasion (as well as other related events), answering this question becomes increasingly important. Specifically, he evaluates the argument that extreme parties (far-right and far-left) are performing this function (not dissimilar to the Western Communist parties during the Cold War). While this argument is popular in the media and in some existing research, systematic comparative analysis, which would consider motivations and actual policy proposals (or support thereof) of various political actors, is generally lacking. Wondreys' project aims to fill this research gap and thus provide a more nuanced answer to the complex initial question based on empirical analyses. Apart from this main project, Wondreys also works on solo and joint projects on the impact of the ideological extremity of political parties on electoral behavior and the systemic integration of nativist parties in Europe.