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They also demand an immediate ceasefire and the start of peace negotiations with Russia.
The German parties Alternative for Germany (AfD) and Sahra Wagenknecht's Alliance (BSW) submitted a joint proposal to the parliament of the state of Saxony-Anhalt. They demand an end to military and financial assistance to Ukraine and the lifting of sanctions against Russia. This is their first joint initiative since the newly elected state parliament began its work. An extraordinary session to consider this demand is scheduled for 14 October, reports Der Spiegel.
The draft resolution proposes that the regional parliament (Landtag) declare the sanctions policy toward Russia, as well as arms deliveries and financial aid to Ukraine, to be failures. The state government is called on to act “by all available means,” including an initiative in the Bundesrat, to prevent further escalation. The Bundesrat is the Federal Council of Germany, the body representing all 16 German states at the national level.
Diplomacy should be the priority: “An immediate ceasefire and the start of peace negotiations with Russia are necessary.” The authors of the document also seek normalization of economic relations between Germany and Russia and the immediate lifting of economic sanctions.
Adopting such a document would be primarily symbolic: key powers over aid to Ukraine and sanctions against Russia belong to Berlin and Brussels.
Ulrich Sigmund of the AfD, who intends to become the state’s minister-president in December, said: “We will finally use every opportunity to increase political pressure on Berlin so that it finally stands for ending the war, not continuing it, and spends billions of euros of taxes on people in our country, not on weapons on the battlefields in Ukraine!”
BSW founder Sahra Wagenknecht said that Germany must care for dialogue with Moscow, “instead of escalating an escalation that will at some point end in war.” She accused German Chancellor Friedrich Merz of going to Kyiv with a “suitcase of money.”
The federal government in Berlin, which decides on aid to Ukraine, is following the opposite course. Chancellor Friedrich Merz traveled to Kyiv on 4 October, despite Russian warnings to foreign diplomats. Following talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Germany announced a new aid package worth more than 1,3 billion euros: about one billion for armaments and 350 million euros for restoring energy infrastructure ahead of winter.
Three days before the visit, Merz accused Russia of supporting the AfD and trying to weaken assistance to Ukraine, although he presented no concrete evidence.
The pro-Russian AfD, which advocates a much softer line toward Moscow, won the elections in Saxony-Anhalt in September, and two weeks later in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Its parliamentary group in the Bundestag has already called for an end to deliveries of German weapons to Ukraine and for lifting sanctions against Russia as part of peace negotiations.
On whether the party’s success will change Berlin’s policy toward Kyiv, German historian and former chairman of the board of the Viktor Pinchuk Foundation Thomas Weyhe writes in ZN.UA in the article “Merz so far keeps course toward Ukraine. But Kyiv already needs to prepare a Plan B.”
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