Ukraine

Now there is evidence from the USA: the Russian leadership has used considerable resources to try to stir up social conflict in Germany and worsen relations with other countries. The US Department of Justice has succeeded in striking a blow against the operation, known as the ‘Doppelganger’ campaign, which has been running for a good two years.

The campaign, along with masses of centrally controlled fake accounts on social media, has been spreading texts in the Kremlin's favour almost continuously since spring 2022. US authorities have now paralysed fake pages on the network - and presented evidence that shows The trail to the huge influence campaign leads all the way to the top of the Kremlin. And: the campaign also aims to support the AfD.

This emerges from documents from the US Department of Justice, which are available to t-online. They include various original documents from the alleged masterminds. Current US investigations into Russian influence peddling involve right-wing influencers such as Tim Pool and Lauren Southern, who produced pro-Russian videos for money from Russia. Ten million US dollars are said to have been paid for this.

The US public is paying somewhat less attention to equally explosive findings that concern Europe and Germany in particular. The files shed light on the so-called ‘doppelganger’ campaign that t-online uncovered before Facebook's parent company Meta finally confirmed the operation.

For this operation, numerous websites of international media were recreated under very similar-looking URLs and provided with pro-Russian fake news. t-online was also affected. According to the documents, the FBI identified four online profiles that were used to generate internet addresses for fake t-online or ‘Spiegel’ pages.

The content was then distributed there by automated profiles via social media. The German Foreign Ministry provided an impressive figure on the extent of this campaign in January: In the period from 20 December 2023 to 20 January 2024 alone, more than one million German-language tweets were posted. The campaign was aimed at Ukraine, the USA and Nato.

There were already clues about the people behind the mysterious bot waves: several companies with close ties to the Kremlin have been identified since 2022 as being involved in the propaganda with mass dissemination of fake news: the Social Design Agency (SDA), Structura National Technology (Structura) and Ano Dialog. t-online has also identified people involved in Russian state media who were looking for agreeable interview partners in the West for articles.

The US authorities are now certain: the dubious companies were acting on direct instructions from Putin's presidential administration - under the supervision of chief propagandist Sergey Kiriyenko. He is a former prime minister and now a close member of Putin's presidential staff.

The documents also confirm that the campaign was clearly designed to fuel social tensions in order to strengthen Russia's position in the war in Ukraine. Germany was therefore the primary target of the endeavours because it was ‘more dependent than France’, according to a protocol from the circle of Kremlin propagandists. A person in charge drew up eight minutes of meetings in which Kiriyenko and a close associate were also named. They show that Putin's confidant set the broad lines.

With a clear goal: ‘First and foremost, we need to discredit the US, the UK and NATO’, then pro-Russian narratives need to be spread and the Germans need to be convinced of the ‘ineffectiveness’ of the Russia sanctions, according to the protocols. According to one of the documents, three narratives are central to this: ‘Ukrainians’ and derogatory portrayals of them; ‘the difference between Ukraine and Germany’ and: ‘The USA is behind everything’.

The documents show how those involved apparently almost enjoyed it. For example, the alleged original concept for the doppelganger campaign states: ‘If we can do this, we need our own department for fakes - a factory!’ Numerous propaganda ideas are being considered. For example, a rape by a US soldier could be invented. ‘That would be great!’ they said.

The idea was never realised. Instead, fictitious stories about crimes committed by Ukrainians in Germany emerged in the summer of 2022. Such ideas can also be found in the concepts.

One of the most revealing passages in the documents can be found in the ‘instigating international conflicts’ project, which is aimed at Germany and France. In order to fuel such conflicts and even ‘artificially create’ them, Kremlin officials are said to pull out all the stops: Comments on social media, analytical articles, fake news sites, fake news - even ‘fake videos, documents and recorded telephone conversations’. Both bots and influencers sympathetic to Russia are to be used for dissemination. The target: 30,000 comments per month in Germany.

The propagandists apparently had the AfD in mind, which they see as being in line with Russian interests. ‘We support the party by all means,’ reads the description of the project. The aim was to create ‘the image of martyrs who suffered for democracy and Germany's national interests’.

In July 2022, the first fake accounts that t-online was able to find had also shared a Facebook post by Stefan Keuter, an AfD member of the Bundestag who is known to be particularly close to Russia. He had shared a text from the ‘Deutschlandkurier’ newspaper that was fully in line with the Russian agenda: it suggested in question form that Zelenskyy's secret service had spied on the OSCE, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

In addition, AfD politicians repeatedly gave interviews to a website (‘Reliable Recent News’) that was central to the campaign. This site is now no longer accessible. The FBI has confiscated it, as can be read on the site. Some German-language addresses operated by the network have also been switched off since Tuesday. A total of 32 addresses were seized that had been used by the Russian government or actors paid by it. The judiciary is speaking of an offence against money laundering and trademark protection laws.

In order to conduct interviews for articles on the website, a former RT Deutsch employee apparently contacted potential contacts and was able to draw on existing contacts in some cases. Mr Kiriyenko, a Putin confidant, had apparently agreed to involve ‘our influencers outside’, according to the minutes. In a meeting of the ‘doppelganger’ participants, it was stated that SVK - Kiriyenko's abbreviation - was not against their involvement. Interviewees included the MPs Steffen Kotré and René Springer, both on the AfD Brandenburg board.

The role of possible support for the AfD from Russian networks came up again after the European elections. Troll armies on X had massively stirred up support for the AfD during the election. This was the result of a study conducted by the private research institute Trollrensics on behalf of the Dutch Social Democrats: Thousands of centrally controlled accounts were found to have spread adverts for the AfD alongside Russian propaganda and misinformation. To a lesser extent also for the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance.

Shortly before the election, allegations had already emerged that AfD member of parliament Petr Bystron in the Czech Republic had received money from the circle of oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk, who is loyal to Putin. He was apparently also documented by investigators when small parcels were handed over. The immunity of the second-placed candidate on the AfD list for the European elections was lifted and his home was searched. The investigation is still ongoing.