The Kremlin wants to influence German elections through disinformation

By Ана Анастасовска On Feb 14, 2025 0

Photo: Canva Collage

By exploiting fears and other societal vulnerabilities, creating false narratives, and employing advanced amplification techniques, the Kremlin seeks to manipulate and polarize electorates, shape the political environment, and weaken European unity

Author: Ana Anastasovska

On the 16th of December 2024, the German Bundestag voted a motion of no confidence against German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Earlier, he had submitted a request for a vote of confidence in the government to Parliament.

Scholz received the support of 207 out of 733 deputies in the Bundestag, while 394 deputies voted against him and 116 abstained. A total of 367 votes were needed for his government to survive.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier dissolved the Bundestag and called for early parliamentary elections on the 23rd of February 2025. In announcing the decision, he emphasized the need for a functioning government during challenging times.

Russia “bombards” the German electorate with disinformation

As Germany prepares for elections, pro-Kremlin disinformation narrators are using various tactics to try to disrupt the democratic processes in this European country and influence public opinion.

Information amplification networks tied to the pro-Kremlin foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) ecosystem have targeted Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the Greens party and the CDU/CSU with narratives blaming them for economic woes and portraying them as unreliable, Euvsdisinfo writes in its analysis.

At the same time, the German edition of Russia’s leading propaganda outlet, Russia Today (RT), re-established its presence on the social network X, despite being under international sanctions.

These coordinated efforts are not isolated incidents, but part of a broader pro-Kremlin strategy to interfere in democratic processes in Europe, which is not happening for the first time.

One of the main disinformation narratives that was aimed toward the Scholz government, and was also noticed in Macedonia, was the claim that the current German government plans to legalize pedophilia Originating from the Prigozhin-linked Russian Foundation to Battle Injustice (R-FBI), this absurd claim was amplified through a network of Russian-aligned websites, including inauthentic news outlets and social media accounts, reaching hundreds of thousands of users across platforms such as Threads, Telegram, and X, writes Euvsdisinfo.

Truthmeter.mk also noticed these disinformation narratives across the social network Facebook.

In another case, typosquatted domains, impersonating reputable outlets such as Der Spiegel, disseminated fabricated articles criticising mainstream German political parties. Manipulative fabrications such as ‘Green energy strangles German companies’ and ‘Merz masks militarism with populism’ were amplified by inauthentic accounts, garnering tens of thousands of views, writes Euvsdisinfo.

Additionally, a false claim that Germany plans to bring 1.9 million Kenyan workers into the country was circulated widely, with the disinformation narrative crafted to exploit fears of migration to stir division and erode trust in the current government. The story was circulated on a number of websites, Telegram channels, and X accounts tied to the pro-Kremlin ecosystem.

Correctiv: Russian disinformation campaign—100 fake news pages sprouted ahead of German elections

According to Correctiv’s research, the Russian disinformation campaign created about 100 fake news pages before the German federal elections, and their sole purpose is to influence the election campaign. In a few cases they have already been used to attack politicians.

Robert Habeck abused a young woman a few years ago. Annalen Baerbock meets a gigolo on her trips to Africa. The German army mobilizes 500,000 men for a military mission in Eastern Europe. The chairman of the Defense Committee, Marcus Faber, is a Russian agent. A migration agreement with Kenya is bringing 1.9 million Kenyans to Germany, are only part of the disinformation narratives that Correctiv has noted.

Some of this fake news spread to Macedonia.

BREAKING NEWS

Germany is preparing for World War III.

Germany has begun planning for the deployment of 800,000 NATO troops in Ukraine.

A 1,000-page military scenario plan has been prepared under the name “Operation Deutschland.”

-New York Post

Such news was posted on the social network X, says a Facebook post.

Truthmeter.mk has already debunked such disinformation.

All of these claims have one thing in common: they are disinformation, use artificial intelligence and deepfakes, and appear on fake news sites. According to Corrective’s research, they are part of the new Russian influence operation nicknamed “Bura-1516,” which has been interfering in the election campaign ahead of the federal elections for three months.

The trail leads to a former U.S. policeman, the former Russian troll factory the Internet Research Agency (IRA) and the spy agency GRU. The government put the alleged Russian perpetrators on a sanctions list for interfering in the U.S. election campaign.

The Kremlin is trying to strengthen AfD

A Russian disinformation campaign is seeking to boost the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), undermine mainstream German parties and sow worries about the economy ahead of the country’s Feb. 23 election, German think-tank CeMAS has found, Reuters reports.

CeMAS said it had tracked down hundreds of German-language posts on the social network site X over the past month, exhibiting what it said showed typical patterns of Russia’s Doppelganger disinformation campaign against the West that German, U.S. and French authorities have previously denounced.

In recent weeks, the German posts on X have blamed the Greens party for Germany’s economic woes, lambasted Chancellor Olaf Scholz for his support of Ukraine, cast the conservatives as untrustworthy, but spoken in favor of the AfD, CeMAS noted.

The report comes a month ahead of the election which Germany’s main opposition conservatives are expected to win. However, the strength of the AfD, polling in second place, could make the arithmetic of forming a coalition difficult.

The latest INSA poll put the conservatives on 29% and the AfD on 21%—twice what it achieved in the 2021 election. Scholz’s Social Democrats were trailing in third place on 16% and the Greens on 13%.

In December, the anti-immigration AfD also gained the support of X’s owner, Elon Musk, who this month also hosted a live chat with the party’s chancellor candidate Alice Weidel on his platform.

All comments and remarks regarding this and other Vistinomer articles, correction and clarification requests as well as suggestions for fact-checking politicians’ statements and political parties’ promises can be submitted by using this form