This is the third in a series exploring Europe’s fracturing Right. When Russia’s tanks rolled into Ukraine four years ago, panic broke out in Marine Le Pen’s campaign headquarters.

She had a Putin problem. Her open admiration for the Russian president was now a threat to her chances of winning the 2022 presidential election in just two months’ time.

A day later, the National Rally (RN) leader publicly condemned the illegal invasion.

RN had printed 1.2 million campaign leaflets featuring a 2017 photo of Ms Le Pen shaking hands with Vladimir Putin in Moscow. The picture was captioned “a woman of conviction”. The order went out to bin the leaflets. It made no difference.

Marine Le Pen’s party printed 1.2 million campaign leaflets featuring a 2017 photo of its leader shaking hands with Vladimir Putin in Moscow Emmanuel Macron attacked Ms Le Pen over an £8m loan RN had taken from a Russian bank, as well as her broader relationship with the Kremlin, in a televised debate soon afterwards.

“You are dependent on Russian power and Mr Putin,” he told her, before defeating her in the second round of the election a few weeks later.

Mr Macron cannot contest the 2027 election, having already served two terms, but Ms Le Pen – along with Europe’s other hard-Right leaders – still has a Putin problem.

A Le Pen presidency is the biggest threat yet to the united European front supporting Ukraine – a front that is already being undermined by the hard-Right’s successes on the Continent.

A protester holds a placard reading ‘Marine Le Pen: friend of war criminals’ during a demonstration prior to the second round of the French presidential election in 2022 Meanwhile, Alternative for Germany (AfD) is laying the groundwork to sabotage German backing for Kyiv, forcing Berlin to take emergency measures of its own.

The establishment Right accuses surging nationalist parties of benefiting from Kremlin disinformation and cash. But Russia’s illegal war has split Europe’s populists into appeasers and opponents of Moscow.

Each of the three most influential party leaders of the new European Right – Ms Le Pen, Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister, and Alice Weidel of AfD – has their own approach to the Putin problem.

Their differences have stopped them from forming a cohesive political bloc to challenge the Europhile centre-Right’s dominance of the EU. A converted Putin critic?

Ms Le Pen, who is campaigning wearing an ankle tag after her conviction for embezzling EU funds, is an old hand when it comes to erasing uncomfortable histories.

RN was co-founded by her Holocaust-denying father in 1972 as the National Front.

When she took over the party in 2011, she began a process of “dédiabolisation” – a term that translates roughly to “image-softening” – and it has brought her now pro-Israel party to the cusp of power.

Ms Le Pen, pictured in Moscow in 2017, has called for peace negotiations with Russia in order to end the war in Ukraine Having spent years detoxifying her party, she now presents herself as a mainstream politician who decries Putin’s trampling of international law.

After a wave of hybrid attacks in Europe last month, she released a statement accusing Russia of using threats and intimidation.

“France’s foreign policy is decided in Paris, sovereignly, based solely on the interests of the nation. It cannot be determined in Moscow any more than in any other foreign capital,” she said.

But Ukrainian and senior European sources are deeply concerned that her election will sap Western support for Kyiv, which she says France can no longer afford.

Ms Le Pen has called for peace negotiations with Russia in order to end the war – a controversial idea, as it would be likely to require Ukraine to sacrifice territory.

Raphaël Glucksmann, fresh from winning France’s centre-Left primary last week, warned on Tuesday that electing Ms Le Pen could precipitate “the defeat of the European continent”. Ms Le Pen wants to end European sanctions on Russia and to stop Ukraine from joining the EU.

She plans to restrict weapon deliveries to defensive arms, and to end French funding for Ukraine within six months of becoming president.

“This funding will stop, and it is a matter of honesty to tell the truth,” she said in Brussels last week before a meeting with other hard-Right leaders.

Her election would weaken the Coalition of the Willing, jointly led by Britain and France, because she has ruled out sending French troops to police a future peace in Ukraine.

She also plans to withdraw France from Nato’s integrated command once the war in Ukraine is over, in what she believes is a reassertion of French sovereignty.

Antonio Costa, Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Ursula von der Leyen address the media at the EU leaders’ summit in Brussels last week, where Ms Le Pen spoke of her intention to end France’s funding for Ukraine Asked about his leader’s past admiration for Putin, her protégé Jordan Bardella told The Telegraph: “There was a collective naivety on the part of democracies.”Jean-Yves Camus, an expert on the populist Right, said Ms Le Pen still admired Russia because large families were valued there, LGBT rights did not exist, and it was not multiracial.

He said: “Russia embodies all the traditional values that France and other countries have allegedly betrayed because of what she calls ‘wokeism’, because of multiculturalism, because of supranational bodies [like the EU].”Widening lead Despite doubts about the sincerity of Ms Le Pen’s conversion to being a Putin critic, voters appear ready to grant her the presidency at the fourth time of asking.

More than half of French people (51 per cent) now believe she would make a good president, after a centrist Macron era that has mainstreamed parties that were once banished to the fringes.

A separate poll last Monday showed the RN leader and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, her hard-Left rival who has also been accused of being soft on Putin, widening their lead over other candidates. Ms Le Pen is predicted to beat Mr Mélenchon in the second round.

The war in Ukraine does not feature in the list of RN voters’ five most important topics as the election approaches. Immigration, the cost of living, healthcare, taxes and poverty rank higher, according to one survey earlier this month.

Supporters of the Macron-founded Renaissance party believe that Ukraine is the third-most-important issue, behind the cost of living and public debt.

The Meloni model If she is elected, Ms Le Pen’s next step will be to demand acceptance into the exclusive club of EU leaders – and she is likely to look to Italy’s Giorgia Meloni for inspiration.

Ms Meloni has transformed herself from hard-Right firebrand to conservative stateswoman.

She had praised Putin in the past, but when he invaded Ukraine, she became – from the opposition benches – a staunch supporter of Volodymyr Zelensky, the country’s president.

This was fundamental to her acceptance by other EU leaders after she won power in 2022. They had feared that, as a nationalist, she would lead the most Right-wing Italian government since Mussolini.

But she has shown a pragmatic willingness to work with the EU institutions, has interceded on Kyiv’s behalf with the US, and is now Europe’s most influential Right-wing leader after securing tougher migration laws from Brussels.

Giorgia Meloni became a staunch supporter of Volodymyr Zelensky following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 Ms Meloni took the rare step of criticising Donald Trump for striking a “risky” sanctions-busting diesel deal with Putin last week.

“The outcome of this move is questionable, while the risks are clear: legitimising Moscow while its bombs continue to fall on Ukrainian cities, generating new revenue to finance the war, and implicitly weakening the leverage of sanctions,” she said on the eve of a summit in Brussels on Ukraine last week.

“Thank you for understanding who the aggressor is and what it means to build a dignified and lasting peace,” Mr Zelensky told her.

Ukrainian officials told The Telegraph that they hoped Ms Le Pen would follow the “Meloni model” and back Kyiv in exchange for influence at Europe’s top table.

The two women could form a powerful alliance, but for now, the Italian prime minister has chosen to keep her distance rather than appear soft on Putin.

Polarised by Putin In the European Parliament, parties form themselves into like-minded pan-EU groups, which gain funding and speaking time.

The largest is the centre-Right European People’s Party (EPP), which has 188 seats, is pro-EU and pro-Ukraine, and is made up of traditional conservative parties.

The hard-Right is divided into three groups: the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), which has 82 seats, the Patriots for Europe, which includes RN and has 86 seats, and Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN), which has 27 MEPs.

If they were to form a “supergroup”, they would have 195 seats. That would bring significant influence over EU legislation and make the centre-Left Socialists and Democrats group the third-largest alliance.

The new bloc would drag the EPP to the Right on immigration, net zero, and EU red tape.

It could even join forces with the party to create a Right-wing majority, in a first for the 720-seat parliament.

Divisions on Ukraine have so far made that impossible, even though the radical Right was largely united in its praise for Putin before the invasion.

Telegraph analysis of data from the Chapel Hill Expert Survey found that, of 44 hard-Right parties from 25 European countries, 54.5 per cent wanted a closer relationship with Russia.

But 43.2 per cent were anti-Putin and wanted big investments in defence in order to deter him.

Europe’s hard-Right parties have split themselves into European Parliament groups, largely defined by whether or not the members support Ukraine or Russia.

Ms Meloni’s Brothers of Italy and Law and Justice, the anti-Russian Polish populists, lead the ECR group, which is seen as soft Eurosceptic and co-operates with the EPP.

Ms Meloni refused to join the Patriots because it was too pro-Russia. The group was formed by her old friend Viktor Orbán, the pro-Kremlin former prime minister of Hungary, who was ousted in elections in April after 16 years in power.

He became a pariah after threatening to veto EU sanctions, meeting Putin on several occasions, andg energy deals with Moscow after the invasion of Ukraine.

Ms Le Pen now dominates the Eurosceptic Patriots, a group that includes the League, Ms Meloni’s pro-Putin junior coalition partner.

Spain’s Vox party, which is pro-Ukraine, recently joined the Patriots from the ECR, and retains close ties with Ms Meloni, which could help facilitate future co-operation.

Putin’s fans Ms Le Pen barred Ms Weidel’s overtly pro-Putin AfD from joining the Patriots in 2024, after a senior AfD politician said that not all members of the SS had been criminals.

Alice Weidel says it is ‘wrong to continue funding an already lost war’ and that she believes Ukraine cannot defeat Russia After years of detoxifying the once Vichy-friendly RN, Ms Le Pen was not prepared to be associated with Nazi sympathisers.

“Meloni has adopted a robust pro-Ukrainian stance, whereas Weidel is more sympathetic towards the re-forging of ties with Russia. Le Pen has chosen a middle path,” said Prof Frank Furedi, of the Freedom and Sovereignty Initiative think tank.

“I think it is wrong to continue funding an already lost war. Ukraine, unfortunately, is simply too small. Ukraine cannot defeat Russia. It is impossible,” Ms Weidel told The Economist last week.

AfD is demanding a swift return to the days of cheap Russian gas and an end to sanctions, even at the price of surrendering Ukrainian territory to Moscow.

It now leads the ESN group of fringe parties, but has enjoyed a stratospheric rise in the past two years to become Germany’s main opposition and most popular party.

Last month it won two historic state-election triumphs that threatened to topple Friedrich Merz, Germany’s centre-Right chancellor.

But the AfD has its own Putin problem. Its pro-Kremlin views have put it in the crosshairs of the German security services, and momentum is growing to proscribe it.

Its unprecedented victory in Saxony-Anhalt’s state elections, where it gained 43 per cent of the vote, fell short of an outright majority but meant it could nominate a speaker for the state parliament. Tobias Rausch is now the parliament’s first radical Right-wing speaker since the Nazi era.

AfD is hoping to force the German government to ‘finally make efforts to end the war [in Ukraine] rather than prolong it’ AfD has tabled an extraordinary session titled “Peace Talks Instead of Escalation of the War in Ukraine”.

Ulrich Siegmund, the leader of AfD in Saxony-Anhalt, has promised to force the German government to “finally make efforts to end the war rather than prolong it”. He wants taxpayer billions to be spent on Germans “and not weapons for the battlefields in Ukraine”.

Populism-proofing Germany Saxony-Anhalt is turning into a laboratory for policies that could be imposed at the federal level if AfD takes power.

Germany’s domestic spy agency, the BfV, has classified AfD as a Right-wing extremist organisation, and it has powers to wiretap party members.

Hans-Thomas Tillschneider, the architect of the AfD manifesto in Saxony-Anhalt, said he now lives under state surveillance.

“I am being watched, yes,” he told The Telegraph. “But I’m not telling you anything different now than what I say at home.”German security sources warned that the rise of AfD could have a chilling effect on weapons deliveries to Ukraine.

“If these parties are in power, or strong in opposition, they will probably put pressure on the defence budget, on preparations for a possible Russian attack,” a defence source said.

“They do not see support for Ukraine as part of a deterrence strategy. They see it as an obstacle to rapprochement with Russia.”