In the first major European vote since President Trump’s re-election, influence campaigns are targeting Germany from two sides.
Last week, Stephan Protschka, a member of Parliament for the far-right party Alternative for Germany, took to Facebook and Telegram to share a sensationalist article. The country’s Green Party, it claimed, was conspiring with the Ukrainian government to recruit migrants to stage terrorist attacks — and blame his party.
As intended, the post enraged Mr. Protschka’s followers. “People wake up,” one of them replied on Facebook. “This is criminal.”
The article was, in fact, part of a torrent of Russian disinformation that has flooded Europe’s biggest economic and diplomatic power ahead of its federal election on Feb. 23.
As the vote approaches, Russian influence campaigns have propagated wild claims about sexual, financial and criminal scandals involving German politicians, playing on social and political tensions that have divided the country, according to researchers who track disinformation and foreign influence operations.
The claims have appeared in fake news outlets and in videos that have been altered by artificial intelligence. They have been spread by an army of bot accounts on social media platforms like X, Facebook, Telegram and, in a new development, Bluesky.
The goal, according to the researchers and Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, is to undermine trust in mainstream parties and media and to bolster Germany’s far right, led by the Alternative for Germany, known as AfD.