AfD leader blames NATO's Romanian missile shield for sparking Ukraine war

AfD leader Alice Weidel said that the West failed to consider Russia’s security interests when NATO installed the Aegis anti-missile shield in Romania, a move she says contributed to the outbreak of the Ukraine war. She argued that positioning 24 SM-3 interceptors and a ballistic-radar near the Russian border was a repeated “big mistake” over the last twenty years. Weidel called for European leaders to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to reach a peace agreement with Vladimir Putin, stressing that the four-year conflict harms Germany’s economy.

She emphasized that any settlement must balance both Ukrainian and Russian security needs and criticized the strategy of confronting a nuclear-armed state with drones. The interview frames the war as a consequence of NATO’s disregard for Russian objections rather than solely Ukrainian aggression.