Politics · election disinformation · ArchiveRussian Forensics Found in German Election DisinformationAired August 7, 2026 at 9:25 AM UTCWritten September 7, 2026 at 9:22 PM UTCRead the write-upThis storyTranscript · LOADING0:00A disinformation campaign targeting0:02Germany's elections now displays0:03forensic indicators that analysts0:05[music] say point toward Russia. DW's0:07head of fact-checking, Joshua Weber,0:10reports the forensic details, while0:12Moscow officials have already dismissed0:14the allegations as anti-Russian0:15hysteria. [music]0:17The accounts that published the fake0:18content were inactive before the0:20campaign or [music] had previously0:21posted about unrelated subjects, a0:23pattern investigators recognize from0:25account compromise operations. One post0:28targeting the Free Democrats referred to0:29the party not as FDP but as SVDP, the0:32Russian abbreviation for the Free0:34Democrats in Germany. And in another0:36fake video, the narrator appeared to0:37speak with a Russian accent. Most of the0:39fake videos are produced in English, not0:42German, raising questions about whether0:44the intended audience is inside Germany0:46at all. The content is tailored to0:48exploit Germany's most sensitive0:50internal division,0:51>> [music]0:51>> the friction between East and West more0:53than three decades after reunification.0:55The fake videos have pushed claims that0:57West German soldiers distrust their0:59Eastern colleagues and that there are1:00plans to rebuild the Berlin Wall. Weber1:02[music] describes the narratives as1:04designed to portray East and West1:06Germans as hostile and alienated [music]1:07from one another. The campaign hit the1:09center-right CDU/CSU, the center-left1:11SPD, [music]1:12the Greens, the Free Democrats, and the1:14Left Party. Only the far-right AfD1:16[music] and the left-wing populist BSW1:18were left untouched, the two parties1:20most sympathetic to Moscow. [music]1:22Moscow officials have already responded,1:24calling the allegations of election1:26meddling baseless [music] and1:27anti-Russian hysteria. Analysts1:30to previous Russian influence1:31operations, but the evidence is1:33indicative, not conclusive. The1:35architecture [music] of such operations1:36leaves enough ambiguity to sustain1:38denial. What remains unresolved is1:40whether the accumulation of forensic1:42clues, [music] compromised accounts, a1:44Russian abbreviation, a Russian-accented1:46narrator, and a pattern [music] of1:47targeting every party except Moscow's1:49preferred alternatives will cross the1:51threshold from indications of a possible1:53link to a formal attribution before1:54Germans vote. If it does not, the1:57campaign will have achieved at least1:58part of its purpose, sowing division2:01while its authors remain in the shadow2:02of plausible deniability.Explore with HeyDexThe shortThe short ↗