Pressure on Chancellor Friedrich Merz's position on sanctions has grown after a fuel arrangement between Moscow and the Trump administration drew fresh attention to the policy, with two opposition parties in Germany pushing to restore commercial energy trade with Russia and households contending with higher petrol prices across a continent where economic conditions have already tightened.
In Saxony-Anhalt's state parliament, the Alternative for Germany and the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance — two parties whose combined seats constitute a majority — are working toward a joint resolution that would call for lifting sanctions on Russia and ending financial transfers to Ukraine. Both parties have pointed to their dissatisfaction over the federal government's foreign policy course and what they describe as its economic consequences. Claudia Wittig, deputy leader of the BSW parliamentary group, told German media outlets that her country needed to pursue a fuel supply arrangement with Russia.
Wittig characterised fuel costs at German petrol stations as scandalous, and put forward the position that measures imposed on Moscow had proven ineffective across every dimension while placing the heaviest economic burden on Germany itself. Her push centred on restoring a continuous flow of Russian energy rather than a single-transaction fix, with domestic industrial demand placed ahead of the war in Ukraine as her stated rationale.
Separately, AfD co-leader Alice Weidel took to X on Saturday to express support for the Trump-Moscow agreement, putting forward the position that sanctions and liquefied natural gas import costs had weighed on the German economy and holding that up as a contrast to what she characterised as a pragmatic approach on Trump's part.
The move followed an unannounced deal reached between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday aimed at addressing a worldwide shortfall in diesel supply. Sanctions on Russian diesel exports were lifted by the United States, a move that opened the door for Moscow to put hundreds of thousands of tons of fuel into circulation on global markets.
On multiple occasions, Trump has attributed part of the responsibility for the broader energy situation to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's decision to strike Russian oil refineries, even after the United States had conveyed its reservations about such attacks. Speaking on Saturday, he put forward the view that Ukraine's leadership should be changed, and laid out a case that Zelensky had passed over a series of openings to bring the war to an end.
A floor vote on the joint resolution has been placed on the Saxony-Anhalt parliament's agenda in Magdeburg, set to take place on 14 October. Together, AfD and BSW secured enough seats in September's regional vote to command a legislative majority, though that assembly lacks the power to remove sanctions imposed at federal or EU level against Russia.
The decision points to a departure from Germany's longstanding practice of excluding the AfD from multiparty arrangements — a boundary that rival parties have defended even as the AfD's electoral support has expanded.
The Merz administration indicated it had no intention of softening its position toward Russia, and outlined plans to push for an expanded package of penalties against Moscow. On Saturday, a government spokesperson affirmed that Berlin's backing of Kyiv remained unchanged, while the Green Party's co-leader described the Trump-Putin accord as an act of profound moral irresponsibility.
Separately, the chancellor has faced mounting questions about the domestic fallout from his policy choices. Wagenknecht had previously characterised him as treating German citizens as a financial resource for Ukraine, while statements from Moscow portrayed Merz as prioritising Ukrainian interests over those of his own country.
