BERLIN, February 12. /TASS/. Sahra Wagenknecht, the leader of Germany’s BSW party (formerly known as Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance - Reason and Justice party, has slammed financial support for Ukraine as wasting taxpayer money.
"The German government is turning German taxpayers into the number one sponsor of the war," she told the Berliner Zeitung newspaper. Instead of seriously working on a peace plan and demanding a compromise, including from Vladimir Zelensky, the German government "is issuing one check after another to Ukraine," she said, adding that this money does not bring peace closer, but protracts the conflict.
"The fact that Germany’s ruling coalition day after day introduces new proposals to cut spending on its own citizens, while billions from German taxpayer money are being burned in Ukraine, is beyond cynicism," Wagenknecht noted. Funding Ukraine has long been nothing but "wasting German taxpayer money, the consequences of which fall right on the shoulders of the Ukrainian civilian population, resulting in new suffering and an entailing more victims," she said.
The Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel) said earlier that Europe had increased military support for Kiev in 2025 by 67% compared to average indices for 2022-2024, while humanitarian and financial support from the European Union was up by 59%. The bulk of financial and humanitarian support is provided to Ukraine via EU institutes and mechanism, whereas military assistance originates from a small number of countries, primarily in Western and Norther Europe, such as Germany and the United Kingdom.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on December 15 that since February 2022, Berlin has spent some 40 billion euro to support Ukraine militarily and 36 billion euro on civilian support. He also promised to allocate more than 11 billion euro for military assistance to Kiev in 2026.