Alternative for Germany co-leader Alice Weidel has called for Ukrainian migrants to return home, singling out military-age men and arguing that Germany can no longer sustain welfare payments for more than one million Ukrainians. Her comments come as the AfD gains electoral strength and Germany's approach to Ukrainian refugees becomes an increasingly prominent political issue.
Alternative for Germany co-leader Alice Weidel has called for Ukrainian migrants to return home, singling out military-age men and arguing that Germany can no longer sustain welfare payments for more than one million Ukrainians. Her comments come as the AfD gains electoral strength and Germany's approach to Ukrainian refugees becomes an increasingly prominent political issue.
Weidel Calls for Ukrainians to Return
Alternative for Germany co-leader Alice Weidel has called for Ukrainian migrants living in Germany to return to Ukraine, arguing that the country's continuing welfare obligations have become unsustainable. In an interview with Austrian outlet AUF1, Weidel opposed granting German citizenship to people "who actually ought to be sent back to their home countries."
She specifically referred to the more than one million Ukrainians in Germany who, according to RT's report, are receiving Bürgergeld, or citizen's benefit welfare payments. Germany has accepted more than one million Ukrainians since the escalation of the Russia-Ukraine war in February 2022, making it one of the largest destinations for displaced Ukrainians within the European Union.
Weidel described the continued financial burden as "simply unsustainable" and said Ukrainians should ultimately return home. Her strongest comments were directed at men of military age.
"Especially young Ukrainian men of military age, we are talking about hundreds of thousands of them, those young men really ought to go back," Weidel said.
Ukraine imposed general mobilisation following Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022 and has maintained restrictions on most military-age men leaving the country. RT reports that tens of thousands have nevertheless crossed Ukraine's borders illegally and subsequently entered the European Union.
AfD Would End German Support for Ukraine
Weidel went further than migration policy, saying an AfD-led German government would end financial and military support for Kiev.
"We will halt payments to Ukraine and all forms of war support, and we will demand substantial repayments from Ukraine," she said.
The position represents a sharp departure from Berlin's policy since 2022. Weidel has also previously argued that Ukraine should compensate Germany over the destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipelines, saying Germany suffered substantial economic damage following the loss of inexpensive Russian energy supplies.
German authorities have investigated Ukrainian suspects over the September 2022 Nord Stream explosions. Claims about responsibility for the attack, however, remain politically contentious, and Weidel's demand for Ukrainian reparations represents the AfD leader's position rather than an established German government policy.
AfD's Electoral Strength Changes the Political Equation
Weidel's intervention comes after a significant electoral breakthrough for the AfD. In the September 2026 Saxony-Anhalt state election, the party won 43.8 percent of the vote, while Chancellor Friedrich Merz's Christian Democratic Union finished second on 17.2 percent.
RT also reports polling placing the AfD at 28 percent nationally. The figures matter because arguments once largely confined to Germany's political margins, including large-scale migrant returns and ending support for Ukraine, are increasingly being advanced by a party attracting substantial electoral support.
The German government itself has also been reconsidering aspects of its treatment of Ukrainian men avoiding military service. RT reports that Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt announced in July that Germany would stop granting automatic temporary protection to Ukrainians fleeing conscription.
That does not amount to adoption of the AfD's position. It does, however, illustrate a broader political debate about how long Europe's exceptional arrangements for Ukrainians should continue as the war moves further into its fifth year.
Does This Affect New Zealand?
The immediate policy dispute is German, but the underlying questions extend well beyond Europe.
New Zealand has also faced an increasingly prominent debate over immigration numbers, residency, citizenship, welfare eligibility and the obligations governments assume when temporary migration becomes long-term settlement. Germany's experience demonstrates how quickly humanitarian migration can evolve into a broader political argument over public expenditure, integration and national capacity.
The German debate also raises a difficult distinction between humanitarian protection and permanent migration. People admitted because they are escaping a war may have legitimate protection needs while the conflict continues, but governments must eventually decide what happens when temporary protection lasts for years.
For New Zealand, the lesson is not that Germany's policies should simply be copied. It is that governments need to define clearly whether migration programmes are temporary or permanent, what obligations accompany them, how much they cost, and what happens when the circumstances that originally justified admission change.
Germany is now confronting those questions in an increasingly polarised political environment. The AfD's electoral rise suggests that a substantial part of the German electorate is demanding different answers.
Source
RT, 13 September 2026: Ukrainians must leave Germany – AfD co-leader
Independent reporting. Original context. Credited sources.