Germany Sent Billions to Ukraine. The AfD Wants to Know Where Every Euro Went
Berlin says supporting Ukraine is an investment in Germany’s security. The AfD argues that a commitment approaching €80 billion cannot be protected from ordinary standards of accounting particularly while Ukrainian corruption scandals and unanswered questions over the destruction of Nord Stream remain unresolved.
Germany has become Ukraine’s largest European supporter and one of the most important financial and military pillars sustaining Kyiv’s war effort. Successive governments have supplied air-defence systems, armoured vehicles, ammunition, humanitarian assistance, energy equipment and billions of euros in financial support.
Yet after four years of war, the German public still struggles to obtain a simple answer to an apparently simple question: how much has Germany actually spent?
The figures change according to what is being counted. Chancellor Friedrich Merz said in December 2025 that Germany had provided approximately €40 billion in military support and €36 billion in civilian assistance since Russia’s invasion. He promised more than €11 billion in additional military support during 2026.
The Government subsequently described Germany as Ukraine’s largest European supporter. The AfD puts the accumulated value of assistance and commitments at approximately €79 billion.
These figures are not necessarily contradictory. Some represent assistance already delivered; others include future commitments. Some count weapons according to their assessed value. Others include humanitarian programmes, reconstruction assistance or expenditure connected with Ukrainian refugees. German contributions channelled through the European Union and international institutions may appear in separate accounts, while expenditure by states and municipalities is excluded from the federal bilateral total.
The result is an accounting system comprehensible to government departments but almost impenetrable to the ordinary taxpayer.
That is the political opening the AfD has seized.
The question Berlin has not answered
The AfD does not merely want another ministerial spreadsheet. It is demanding an investigation capable of following German assistance from its original parliamentary authorisation to its ultimate destination.
In a Bundestag motion submitted in January, AfD deputies called for a special investigative body involving the Federal Prosecutor General. Its task would be to trace German weapons, military equipment and financial assistance and investigate possible corruption, money laundering, arms trafficking, drug trafficking and terrorist financing.
The party also demanded an immediate end to arms deliveries and other forms of assistance it considers likely to prolong the war. Humanitarian aid would continue.
The motion was drafted in highly political language and rested partly upon allegations that remain unproven. But beneath the rhetoric lies a legitimate demand that the other parties have been too willing to dismiss.
Berlin has published extensive information about the categories of German assistance. It has not produced one consolidated, independently audited public account answering eight fundamental questions:
- How much has Germany spent?
- How much has been promised but not yet delivered?
- What weapons, equipment and services were supplied?
- Which Ukrainian institutions, military formations or contractors received them?
- How was their subsequent use monitored?
- What was lost, destroyed, diverted or resold?
- What future financial and military liabilities has Germany assumed?
- What attainable political objective is this expenditure intended to secure?
The Government can answer that Russia invaded Ukraine and that helping Kyiv resist aggression protects Germany and the rest of Europe. That is a powerful answer to the question of why Germany supports Ukraine.
It is not a complete answer to the question of where the money went.
Corruption cannot be dismissed as propaganda
Ukraine has been fighting a war for national survival while attempting to reform institutions long affected by oligarchic influence, patronage and corruption. Those two realities coexist.
Kyiv has established anti-corruption agencies, dismissed officials, investigated procurement fraud and brought cases against powerful figures. Supporters of Ukraine present this as evidence that its institutions are functioning under extraordinarily difficult conditions.
The AfD draws the opposite conclusion. It argues that the recurrence of scandals demonstrates the danger of transferring ever larger sums into a system that Germany cannot adequately police.
German alternative media have amplified that concern. NIUS asked bluntly where Germany’s €76 billion had gone. NachDenkSeiten has accused Berlin of allowing German taxpayers’ money to enter a Ukrainian “corruption swamp”, particularly while further European lending and military procurement continue.
The most serious version of this case does not allege that €76 billion disappeared. Nor does it claim, without evidence, that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy personally stole German assistance.
It asks whether Berlin can prove that every material category of assistance reached its intended destination and produced the result for which it was authorised.
That distinction is crucial. Documented corruption in Ukraine does not prove that German aid was stolen. Corruption involving officials or presidential associates does not establish personal guilt on Zelenskyy’s part. The existence of an offshore company is not evidence that wartime assistance was deposited into a secret account.
But the absence of proof of theft is not proof of adequate control.
The greater the known institutional risk, the stronger the audit should be. That is normal practice in banking, public procurement and international development. Ukraine should not be exempt merely because scrutinising assistance has become politically associated with the AfD.
The answer from Germany’s other parties
The governing parties and the Greens approach the issue from the opposite direction. They begin not with the cost of assistance but with the cost of Ukrainian defeat.
Russia invaded a sovereign European country, annexed territory and attempted to alter borders by force. If Moscow succeeds, they argue, the consequences will not stop at Ukraine. Germany could face a larger refugee movement, prolonged economic instability, a more dangerous eastern frontier and vastly greater expenditure on European defence.
From that perspective, air-defence systems supplied to Ukraine are not charitable gifts. They destroy Russian missiles before those weapons can bring the war closer to NATO territory. Ukrainian forces are weakening Russia’s military capacity without German soldiers fighting at the front.
Merz has repeatedly described support for Ukraine as a German security interest. His Government argues that abandoning Kyiv would reward aggression and demonstrate that Western commitments can be broken through endurance and violence.
Supporters also reject the suggestion that assistance passes into an unmonitored void. Weapons are recorded through defence ministries and military supply systems. International donors coordinate assistance. Financial programmes are subject to German, European and Ukrainian controls. Ukraine’s anti-corruption institutions have uncovered cases precisely because oversight mechanisms exist.
The objection made by the governing parties is therefore not simply financial. They believe the AfD’s proposed halt to military assistance would help Russia achieve on the battlefield what it has failed to secure diplomatically.
Nord Stream and the limits of German sovereignty
The AfD’s argument becomes politically more powerful when it turns from expenditure to Nord Stream.
Explosions destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipeline strings beneath the Baltic Sea in September 2022. The infrastructure had carried, or was intended to carry, Russian natural gas directly to Germany.
German investigators have pursued suspects alleged to have participated in the operation. Reporting and prosecutorial developments have raised serious questions about possible Ukrainian links. What remains unproved publicly is whether the operation was authorised by the Ukrainian government, approved by Zelenskyy or conducted by individuals acting independently.
The AfD asks why Germany has not demanded a complete public reckoning.
Who planned the operation? Who financed it? Which intelligence services knew about it? Were German or allied authorities warned? Did any Ukrainian state institution authorise or assist the attack? What economic damage did it cause Germany? If state responsibility is ultimately established, will Berlin demand compensation?
There are legitimate reasons for secrecy during a criminal investigation. Governments cannot publish evidence that might compromise prosecutions, intelligence sources or international cooperation.
But secrecy has political consequences. Germany continued committing billions to Ukraine while the public was left to wonder whether people connected to the recipient country had participated in destroying major German infrastructure.
For the AfD, that is evidence of a deeper failure: Germany no longer acts as a sovereign power capable of defending its own interests. It pays, supplies weapons and accepts economic damage while subordinating difficult questions to alliance management.
Weidel has connected the two issues directly. She has demanded the recovery of German billions and compensation for Nord Stream. Her formulation goes beyond what the available evidence presently proves, but the political question cannot simply be wished away.
If Ukrainian state responsibility were established, continued German assistance without conditions would become extremely difficult to defend.
If investigators establish that Ukraine’s government was not responsible, that finding should also be made public as fully as the law permits.
Paymaster without control
A further criticism running through the German alternative press is that Berlin finances policies it does not ultimately control.
Germany cannot determine American negotiating strategy. It cannot dictate Ukraine’s territorial concessions. It cannot decide alone whether sanctions will be lifted, whether frozen Russian assets will be used or what security guarantees will follow a ceasefire.
Yet Germany is expected to provide weapons now, contribute to reconstruction later and assume a substantial share of Europe’s long-term security burden.
This has created what the AfD portrays as the worst of both worlds: enormous responsibility without corresponding authority.
The Government’s answer is that no European state can defend its interests alone. Influence comes through NATO, the European Union and coalitions of supporting states. Germany’s financial weight gives it influence even when it cannot impose every decision.
Nevertheless, the Government has still struggled to define the final objective.
Is the purpose to restore every part of Ukraine’s internationally recognised territory? To force Russia into negotiations? To preserve an independent Ukrainian state behind a fortified ceasefire line? To exhaust Russia militarily? Or simply to prevent Ukrainian collapse?
Those objectives require different levels of expenditure, different weapons and different periods of commitment. Without choosing among them, “as long as necessary” becomes not a strategy but an instruction to keep paying.
Accountability is not capitulation
The AfD benefits when every challenge to Ukraine policy is characterised as Russian propaganda. That response allows the party to present itself as the only political force prepared to ask elementary questions on behalf of German taxpayers.
Some AfD claims deserve rigorous opposition. Its analysis can understate Russian responsibility, treat disputed allegations as established facts and assume that negotiations would produce an acceptable settlement. Ending German arms deliveries unilaterally would not necessarily produce peace. It could instead leave Ukraine weaker while giving Moscow little reason to compromise.
But none of that excuses inadequate transparency.
A democracy must be capable of supporting an ally while auditing the assistance. It must be able to oppose Russian aggression while investigating Ukrainian corruption. It must be able to protect sensitive military information while explaining the scale and purpose of public expenditure.
Above all, it must be able to investigate the destruction of its own infrastructure without fear that the answer may become diplomatically inconvenient.
The AfD’s weakest case is the allegation that German money has simply been stolen. The evidence does not support such a sweeping conclusion.
Its strongest case is much harder to answer: after commitments approaching €80 billion, Berlin has still not given the German public one intelligible, independently auditable account connecting money authorised, assistance delivered, recipients identified, losses recorded and political results achieved.
Germany’s established parties can explain why Ukraine matters. They must now explain where every euro went and what Germany received in strategic security for the price it paid.
