The German Center for Surveillance, Analysis and Strategy (CeMAS) revealed that Russia is running a disinformation campaign to support the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). He wants to weaken the other German parties and damage the German economy ahead of parliamentary elections on February 23. TASR informs according to a Reuters report.
Over the past month, CeMAS tracked down hundreds of posts in German on the X social network, which, according to him, they show patterns typical of Russia’s Doppelgänger disinformation campaign against Western countries.
German posts on Platform X allegedly blamed the Green Party for Germany’s economic problems and they criticized Chancellor Olaf Scholz for his support for Ukraine. They called the German conservative parties untrustworthybut supporting the AfD, the CeMAS center stated in its report.
They were allegedly in the monitored posts shared links to fake German news websiteslinks to articles on actual websites that supported their rhetoric, or simply images. These posts received over 2.8 million views using a number of fake accounts.
The CeMAS report comes about a month before the electionsin which, according to polls, the AfD may finish second behind the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its sister Christian Social Union (CSU).
American billionaire Elon Musk also supported the AfD in December. This month, he interviewed its leader, Alice Weidel, on the X platform he owns.
Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) said in November that took measures to prevent any attempt by foreign actors to influence the country’s elections.
Russia’s Doppelgänger campaign was created to strengthen Moscow’s position after the outbreak of war in Ukraine in February 2022. The goal is to undermine Western support for Kyiv, the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs informed last June. According to the US Department of Justice, the Russian government is cooperating with a group of Russian marketing agencies on it.
Russia rejects any disinformation initiative against the West.
