After Germany vote, Russia celebrates as AfD humiliates Merz

Russia reacted with satisfaction to the election results in Germany’s eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt. Kirill Dmitriev, a special envoy for the Kremlin, called the AfD’s historic performance a humiliation for Friedrich Merz’s government.

“An historic AfD victory is a humiliation for the arrogance, limitations, warmongering, incompetence and hypocrisy of Germany’s discredited governing coalition,” Dmitriev wrote on X. “The Germans have spoken, and Germany has awakened. Humiliated F. Merz has just become Starmer.”

By Starmer, Dmitriev referred to former British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who was forced to leave office in the summer. The AfD supports restoring Russian gas supplies and calls for sanctions against Moscow to end. It opposes sending weapons to Ukraine, which Russia attacked.

According to preliminary results released early Monday, the AfD won Sunday’s election with 43.8% of the vote, well ahead of the conservative Christian Democrats, or CDU, on 17.2%. The Left, Greens and Social Democrats, or SPD, each cleared the 5% threshold with roughly 9% of the vote. The populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, or BSW, also entered the state parliament. The pro-business Free Democrats won 2.6% and failed to gain seats.

Turnout stood at nearly 78%, the highest recorded in Saxony-Anhalt since German reunification in 1990.

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An historic AfD victory is a humiliation for the arrogance, limitations, warmongering, incompetence and hypocrisy of Germany’s discredited governing coalition. The Germans have spoken, and Germany has awakened. Humiliated F. Merz has just become Starmer.