Berlin holds firm on Ukraine aid as far-right AfD gains ground in east

Chancellor Friedrich Merz stood before the Bundestag on September 9 and delivered a straightforward message: Germany would keep sending weapons to Ukraine. "We support Ukraine, and we will continue to support her, because she is also defending our freedom," he said, speaking directly to the far-right Alternative for Germany party, which had just won nearly 44 percent of the vote in Saxony-Anhalt's state election three days earlier. The AfD's co-leader Alice Weidel had pressed him to abandon military aid and instead push for peace talks modeled on what she suggested the United States was pursuing—a characterization that glosses over the fact that American negotiations with Russia would likely mean territorial concessions Ukraine cannot afford to make. Weidel also called for resuming cheap natural gas shipments from Russia, a position that echoes through much of eastern Germany, where skepticism about Ukraine aid has hardened into something approaching consensus.

The election results in Saxony-Anhalt exposed a fracture in German public opinion that runs along the old border between East and West. When you combine votes for the AfD, the socialist Left Party, and the populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, roughly 60 percent of voters in that eastern state chose parties that either oppose supporting Ukraine or view it with deep suspicion. An ARD survey conducted just before the election revealed the depth of this divide: 54 percent of eastern Germans thought military assistance to Ukraine went too far, compared to 39 percent in the west. Johannes Varwick, a political scientist at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, told Deutsche Welle that this eastern skepticism does not necessarily reflect pro-Russian sentiment so much as a preference for diplomacy over weapons shipments—a desire to keep Germany out of a conflict that many fear could expand. Citizens in the east ranked peace in Europe as their second-most pressing concern, behind only social security and well ahead of immigration or climate change.

The timing of the AfD's electoral surge matters. On September 2, the German government had blamed Russia for a failed drone attack on Leipzig airport, a crucial logistics hub for military aid bound for Ukraine. Putin called it a "grave error," while Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov described the accusation itself as "the start of a real war." The exchange marked a new pitch in an already tense relationship, and it appears to have sharpened rather than softened eastern German anxieties. According to the latest ARD survey, 56 percent of Germans overall feel strongly or very strongly threatened by Russia—but eastern Germans and AfD voters report feeling less threatened, a paradox that suggests their caution stems not from indifference to Russian power but from a different calculation about how to avoid provoking it. Sven Leunig, a political scientist at Friedrich Schiller University Jena, framed it this way: eastern Germans are motivated less by fundamental opposition to Ukraine aid than by fear of being drawn deeper into the conflict. That fear, in turn, strengthens parties willing to accommodate it.

A second pressure on support for Ukraine comes from domestic politics. The AfD and the Wagenknecht Alliance argue that billions flowing to Kyiv could be redirected to Germany's strained social services. AfD lawmaker Gottfried Curio accused the government of cutting social benefits and raising taxes "to keep on giving billions to foreign countries" and to finance "foreign wars." This framing—Ukraine aid as a luxury Germany cannot afford—resonates in a country where inflation has bitten into household budgets and public services feel stretched thin. The erosion of public backing is measurable and steady. ARD surveys tracked over years show a slow but consistent rise in the share of Germans who believe military support goes too far. That figure now stands at 42 percent, up from lower levels in earlier years.

Merz insists the government still commands majority support for its course. During the Bundestag debate, he pushed back against the AfD's vision of resuming Russian energy deals and ending Ukraine aid: "This path that you depict is not supported by the majority in the German parliament and it is also not supported by the majority of the population of the Federal Republic of Germany." On September 10, when NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte visited Berlin, Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul reiterated the message: "Germany will stay the course during this time." Yet the qualifier matters. Leunig believes the government still enjoys "clear support" for its Ukraine policy and faces no immediate pressure to reverse course, especially as the Russian threat becomes more widely recognized. But he added a condition: if public backing weakens over the long term, the government will have to respond.

Johannes Varwick, the political scientist, argues the government should reconsider its approach now, not because of domestic mood swings but because the current strategy may not serve Ukraine's interests. "Standing by Ukraine does not mean fueling a futile war of attrition without a viable political strategy," he said. Critics have drawn parallels to Afghanistan, where two decades of Western military intervention, billions in spending, and roughly 3,500 Western military deaths ended with the Taliban's return to power. Leunig resists the comparison—Afghanistan involved direct Western ground and air operations, while Germany is supplying weapons rather than troops—but he acknowledges the parallel that matters most: public fear that the war will drag on indefinitely and that Ukraine may ultimately be forced to surrender territory anyway. For now, Berlin is holding firm. But the ground beneath that position is shifting, especially in the east, where the memory of division runs deep and the appetite for another protracted foreign conflict has worn thin.