AfD leader vows to end German support for Ukraine if elected
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AfD Co-Chair Alice Weidel (Photo: REUTERS/Liesa Johannssen)
Alice Weidel, leader of Germany's far-right, pro-Russian Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, said in an interview with AUF1 on Sept. 11 that if her party comes to power, Berlin would end all support for Ukraine.
"We will end payments to Ukraine and all support for the war, and we will make significant demands for compensation from Ukraine," Weidel said.
More than a million Ukrainians in Germany receive Bürgergeld social welfare benefits, which she said is "no longer sustainable to fund."
Weidel said "these Ukrainians need to go back, especially men of conscription age." The AfD leader claimed there are a "six-figure number" of such men in Germany and said they would "gladly return" to their homeland.
Alternative for Germany won the Sept. 6 state parliament election in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt. The AfD received more than 43% of the vote but did not secure an absolute majority in the state parliament.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called the Saxony-Anhalt election result a "tectonic shift" in Germany's party system and acknowledged that the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) had suffered a "dramatic defeat."
On Sept. 8, thousands of people took to the streets of Berlin to protest the AfD's election win.
On Sept. 9, U.S. President Donald Trump congratulated the AfD on its victory on his Truth Social platform, saying Germany would now "be great again." Dirk Wiese, a Bundestag lawmaker from the Social Democratic Party, called Trump's comments unacceptable. Merz, meanwhile, postponed a phone call with the American president that had been scheduled for Sept. 9.
According to a poll by research group Forschungsgruppe Wahlen, the AfD is also leading in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
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