The Russian disinformation campaign is aimed at supporting the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, undermining Germany's main parties and sowing concerns about the economy ahead of the country's February 23 elections.
This is reported by RBC-Ukraine with reference to Reuters.
German think tank CeMAS said it had tracked hundreds of German-language posts on the social media platform X over the past month that showed typical patterns of Russia's Doppelgaenger (“evil double”) disinformation campaign against the West, which has previously been condemned by German, US and French authorities.
According to a report by the German Foreign Ministry published last June, the campaign, created after Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine to undermine Western support for Kiev, is spreading links to fake Western news agencies that are spreading false information.
According to CeMAS, in recent weeks German posts on X have blamed the Green Party for Germany's economic problems, criticized Chancellor Olaf Scholz for his support for Ukraine, called conservatives as unreliable, but spoke in favor of the AdN.
The posts it tracked shared links to fake German news sites, or to articles on real sites supporting their narrative, or simply images. Reinforced by networks of fake accounts, they received more than 2.8 million views, CeMAS said.
The report comes a month before elections in which Germany’s main opposition conservatives are expected to win. However, the strength of the AfD, which is in second place, could complicate the arithmetic of coalition formation – and governance in general, if it manages to win over the blocking minority.
The Mask Factor
In December, the anti-immigrant AfD party won the support of X owner Elon Musk, who also hosted a chat on his platform with the party's chancellor candidate Alice Weidel this month.
A poll published on January 18 by the INSA sociological service showed the conservatives gaining 29% and the AfD 21%, double the number in the 2021 election. Scholz's Social Democrats were in third place with 16%, and the Greens with 13%.
In November, Germany's domestic intelligence service (BfV) said it had set up a task force to stop any attempts by foreign states to influence the federal election.
Germany is Ukraine's second-largest financial and military backer and is keen to help it repel a full-scale Russian invasion that began almost three years ago.
According to the BfV, this has led to a sharp increase in Moscow's “aggressive behavior” towards Germany and other Ukrainian allies.