The far-right Alternative for Germany is buoyant as it eyes a slice of power in regional elections

BERLIN (AP) — The far-right Alternative for Germany is in a buoyant mood as it holds a convention this weekend. It is capitalizing on the unpopularity of a government that’s trying to reform the sluggish economy, and eyeing promising prospects of power in an eastern region this fall.

Yet the anti-migration nationalist party is as polarizing as ever. Its meeting is expected to draw tens of thousands of protesters to the eastern city of Erfurt.

Alternative for Germany, or AfD, is meeting to elect its leaders, which German parties do every two years. It will aim to put on a show of unity as it extends the terms of Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla, who have run the party together for four years.

In last year's national election, AfD achieved the best showing by a far-right party since World War II. Its second-place finish left it as the biggest opposition party nationally and the strongest political force in Germany's formerly communist east. Its support has since climbed above the 20.8% it won then, with recent assessments putting it in first place.

Weidel said recently that “2026 is a year of destiny for AfD.” Mainstream parties say they won’t work with it, a stance often known as a “firewall.”

But it hopes to win 40% of the vote or more in a state election Sept. 6 in the eastern region of Saxony-Anhalt. That could put it on course for an absolute majority or in a position where it might try to attract defectors, paving the way for its first state governor.

Another eastern state election follows two weeks later in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, and AfD is optimistic there too.

“AfD is standing before the gates of power, to some extent,” said Albrecht von Lucke, a political expert who edits the magazine Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik.

AfD's first head of a county administration was elected in 2023 in Thuringia, the state where Erfurt is located. No more have followed since, as enough voters rallied around mainstream candidates to prevent a repeat.

But leading a state administration would be a far bigger prize. Germany's 16 states have extensive powers, for example in running the education system and in overseeing security matters.

Opponents worry about the prospect of AfD replacing large numbers of civil servants if it governs Saxony-Anhalt, and about the possibility of confidential information ending up in far-right circles or even Russia. “An AfD interior minister would be a security risk,” Gregor Maier, Thuringia's center-left interior minister, told ARD television.

AfD rejects concerns about it running a state government. “We will prove that we can do it better, and that is exactly what the old parties are afraid of,” Chrupalla said this week at a rally in Berlin.

Von Lucke, however, said it would be “a huge challenge” for the party to show it can govern Saxony-Anhalt well, with internal conflicts likely. “A lot speaks for this not succeeding,” he said.

AfD has been helped by the deep unpopularity of Chancellor Friedrich Merz's national coalition government, which took office 14 months ago with pledges to reform and turn around Germany’s economy, Europe’s biggest. It is now embarking on potentially painful change after a long period of economic stagnation, but has yet to persuade voters that it can produce results.

Merz has pleaded for patience.

“It is unrealistic always just to lament decline, mope and wait for a big bang,” he said at an industry meeting recently. “There isn't going to be one. We are in a reform process ... and we are moving forward in this process.”

“We want to show that solutions are possible from the political center of this country, that we also recognize the problems correctly,” he added.

But AfD has long become adept at harnessing discontent with issues well beyond its signature theme of curbing migration, which powered its rise in the mid-2010s.

It has been supportive of the Trump administration's general approach, while criticizing the war in Iran. It also has long called for lifting of sanctions against Russia and opposes weapons deliveries to Ukraine. Merz, Chrupalla said, “thinks he has to escalate against Russia, like in the Cold War. He should be building bridges.”

AfD is locked in a battle with Germany's domestic intelligence agency over the latter's assessment of the party. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution announced last year that it was classifying AfD as a proven right-wing extremist group, but suspended the designation after a legal challenge. In February, a Cologne court said the agency can't use the designation while it considers the party's lawsuit in detail.

Some want to see the party banned, and protesters expected to turn out in force on Saturday and Sunday likely will underline those calls. But Germany's supreme court has set the bar for banning parties very high in the past.

Opponents of the idea are wary of handing AfD a victory by having a plea for a ban rejected after lengthy proceedings. Merz and conservative allies say the priority should be for the government to prove it can improve Germans' lives.

In a 2025 report issued on Tuesday, the intelligence agency said there were no indications that the party had backed off its problematic views.

“Many statements by the AfD and its representatives reflect an understanding of the nation that is based on ethnicity and ancestry and contradicts the understanding of the nation enshrined in Germany's constitution,” it said. It pointed to calls for the “remigration” of millions of people and to regular talk of an allegedly planned “great replacement” of the population.

AfD vehemently rejects accusations of extremism and argues the agency is being weaponized by mainstream parties.

Kerstin Sopke in Berlin contributed to this report.

German Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz, center, attends a press conference with Minister-President of Bavaria and CSU Chairman Markus Söder, left, Federal Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Bärbel Bas, right and Federal Minister of Finance, Lars Klingbeil, in the garden of the Chancellery following the meeting of the coalition committee, in Berlin, Thursday, July 2, 2026. (Michael Kappeler/dpa via AP)

FILE - Stickers are offered at the re-founding of the AfD youth organization in Giessen, Germany, Nov. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner, File)

FILE - A party member is pictured during the re-founding of the AfD youth organization as "Generation Deutschland" in Giessen, Germany, Nov. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner, File)

FILE - People demonstrate against the planned re-founding of the AfD youth organization in Giessen, Nov. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner, File)

FILE - AfD Co-leaders Alice Weidel, left, and Tino Chrupalla attend a session of the German parliament in Berlin, Germany, March 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)

Despite severe fuel shortages across Russia, President Vladimir Putin appears unbothered by Ukraine’s increasing attacks on his country’s oil refineries.

He has shrugged off the setback for one of the world’s leading oil-producing nations as “not critical,” dismissed ceasefire proposals and insisted the war will continue until his goals are met.

Putin has described the attacks on Russian energy as an effort by Ukraine to distract attention from its losses on the battlefield, although analysts say the advance of Russian forces has been stymied in recent months. The Russian leader appears to believe his government can keep the fuel crisis from eroding his authority and support for the war he launched more than four years ago.

The Russian military unleashed a massive 11-hour barrage on the Ukrainian capital overnight into Thursday morning that killed at least 30 people. It was one of the deadliest attacks on Kyiv since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion.

Here's a deeper look at the latest exchange of strikes and Putin’s refusal to halt the fighting:

There have been more than 50 reported Ukrainian attacks on oil refineries and other energy facilities in Russia and occupied Crimea since March — a barrage Ukrainian leaders have said is intended to pressure Moscow to end the war.

At the very least, the attacks have brought the war home even more poignantly for millions of Russians, shattering Putin’s narrative of the conflict as something that doesn’t affect the lives of ordinary people in his country.

An estimated one-third of Russia’s refining capacity has been cut off, according to Chris Weafer, CEO of the consultancy Macro-Advisory. The attacks have inflicted lasting damage that will be costly to fix.

Despite significant air defenses protecting Russia's capital, a top refinery in Moscow has been hit twice. The second strike on June 18 set it ablaze, damaging key equipment that will reportedly take until the end of the year to repair.

With gasoline production in Russia reduced by roughly 17% to 850,000 barrels a day, according to government statistics, rationing has been introduced in many regions, and motorists have had to wait in line for hours to refuel.

Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014, has faced the worst fuel shortages. Gasoline sales to individuals have been periodically halted there altogether.

Putin chaired a meeting of government officials last weekend to discuss the fuel shortages.

In televised statements, he acknowledged the country was going through a “difficult period.” He pledged to accelerate repairs of energy facilities and said Russia would consider importing gasoline to help make up for what he described as “temporary” shortages. He also said Russia's arms industry will boost production of air defense systems to fend off future Ukrainian attacks.

Putin portrayed the Ukrainian strikes as an attempt to divide Russian society, halt Moscow's offensive and try to force the Kremlin into negotiations on “terms advantageous to our adversary.”

“We will not give them that chance,” he said.

While Putin said Ukraine's long-range strikes on Russian oil facilities “have absolutely no effect on the situation at the front,” Western military analysts say mid-range strikes on the Russian army in recent months have hampered military logistics and slowed the tempo of its advance, leaving the battlefield in a stalemate.

Putin claims Russian forces are still advancing across the roughly 1,000 kilometer-long (620 mile-long) front line. In an interview last weekend with state TV, Putin mentioned the names of small villages and even streets in Ukraine.

The Russian president has responded to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's offer to meet by challenging him to come to Moscow, a non-starter to Ukraine.

Putin has rejected a truce that Kyiv and its Western allies have proposed. He says it would only give Ukrainian forces time to rest and regroup.

He has made any ceasefire conditional on Ukraine's withdrawal from the part of the Donetsk region it still controls, a demand rejected by Ukraine. Putin has said that a final peace deal must oblige Ukraine to abandon its bid to join NATO, reduce its military and protect Russian language and culture.

In last Sunday's interview, Putin claimed that Ukraine had offered to limit the fighting to the four regions that Russia annexed but never fully captured: Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. He said he rejected the proposal because it would free up Ukrainian forces from other areas where Russian troops have made inroads and let them focus on fending off the Russian attacks in the four southeastern regions.

“Faced with a catastrophic shortage of personnel, the armed forces of Ukraine apparently believe this could be their salvation,” Putin said. “Saving the Kyiv regime is not part of our plans.”

The Kremlin said the offer was made via confidential channels; Ukrainian officials have not publicly discussed any such proposal.

Putin also dismissed a Ukrainian proposal to mutually halt strikes deep into each other's territory. Russian attacks deep into Ukraine are “much more powerful, sensitive and, frankly speaking, destructive,” he said.

In Thursday's deadly barrage on Kyiv, Russia once again hit residential areas even as it claimed to be targeting military sites. By contrast, the vast majority of Ukrainian strikes in Russia have hit oil facilities, weapons factories and other military targets.

A United Nations tally says more than 16,000 Ukrainian civilians have died in the war.

A man reacts at the site of a Russian missile strike that hit a residential building in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, July 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Cars line up at a Lukoil gas station in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, June 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with Kaliningrad Region Governor Alexey Besprozvannykh in Moscow, Thursday, July 2, 2026. (Gavriil Grigorov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

Smoke rises over the city center after a Russian attack on Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, July 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

A woman looks at an apartment building burning after a Russian missile attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, July 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Danylo Antoniuk)