The head of Germany’s far-right populist AfD, has condemned what he has called the “theatrics” around the death of Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny, claiming it has been exploited for political means.

Tino Chrupalla said the speech of Navalny’s widow Yulia Navalnaya at the Munich Security Conference last weekend had been “stage managed”, implying that it had been instrumentalised by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen to shore up her own support having just launched her own bid for reelection.