Overview
- BSW leader Sahra Wagenknecht claimed public broadcasters have sidelined her party since the Bundestag election, a charge Markus Lanz disputed while citing her previous appearances.
- Wagenknecht questioned attributing recent drone sightings to Russia and warned against being talked into war, prompting military scholar Carlo Masala to counter that Russia blocks a cease-fire and that NATO missiles in Ukraine were never planned.
- Pussy Riot activist Maria Aljochina described arrests, a two‑year penal‑colony sentence and exile, and said Wagenknecht was repeating lines heard on Russian propaganda channels.
- Lanz became visibly emotional during Aljochina’s account, with his voice breaking as he recalled meeting young Russian dissidents in St. Petersburg.
- Journalist Kerstin Münstermann rejected claims of curtailed opinion diversity, and the program closed by interrogating the broader ‘war of narratives’ shaping views on the Ukraine conflict.