Operation Matryoshka: Russia using ‘BBC news’ fakes to pervert key German vote – EUobserver

On 6 September, elections to the state parliament will be held in the German federal state of Saxony-Anhalt. Such votes attract little interest from most European and global media outlets, which see them as parochial events.

But these local elections will be different.

The far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party is expected to win by a wide margin. It could receive 40 percent of all votes, and has even said its aim is to dominate sufficiently to govern alone.

If that happened, it would be the first time since World War II that a party with links to the far right governed a German federal state.

In Saxony-Anhalt, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution — the domestic intelligence service — classifies the AfD as a demonstrably right-wing extremist party.

AfD politicians also have ties to Russia and advocate closer relations with president Vladimir Putin’s regime.

As German authorities, security agencies, and the media have warned, the Kremlin has a strong interest in the Saxony-Anhalt election, and experts say Moscow would welcome the best possible result for the AfD.

It is not new that Russia has sought to influence elections in Germany through its disinformation channels. And the current focus is on Operation Matryoshka, which is taking place alongside other Russian troll activities such as Doppelgänger and Storm-1516.

Operation Matryoshka was already active during the federal election in 2025, but it now appears to have changed its strategy.

“It is as if its creators wanted to test the limits of what is possible — what could still be considered believable,” the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote.

Social media platforms are awash with fake content intended to discredit candidates and reinforce the perception of Germany as a deeply divided country.

Germany’s interior ministry confirmed that the government was monitoring the disinformation campaign, but was not yet taking any active measures.

Four sources cited by Reuters said that German security services were convinced the campaigns were centrally directed from Russia. They said they were carried out through several companies and used social media to disseminate videos, predominantly in English, bearing the logos of reputable media outlets including the UK’s BBC and Germany’s ARD.

According to German media, the activity is run by a network of Russian bots which use social media platforms such as X, Bluesky, and TikTok to spread AI-generated false information about politicians from the governing conervative CDU/CSU alliance, led by chancellor Friedrich Merz, as well as the leftwing SPD, the opposition Greens, and the Left party.

However, there are at least two relevant parties that, according to the authorities, are not being targeted at all: the far-right AfD and the far-left BSW. Both want closer ties with Russia. Instead, the targets were always politicians critical of the Kremlin, officials said.

“Even before the federal election, we observed that Russian campaigns generally sought to discredit candidates from all democratic parties while supporting the AfD and BSW. What we are now seeing ahead of the state elections is a continuation of Russia’s long-term strategy of supporting parties with pro-Russian positions while discrediting other parties and candidates,” Julia Smirnova, an analyst at the Berlin-based Centre for Monitoring, Analysis and Strategy think tank, told Deutsche Welle (DW).

One allegedly killed a tennis player, another his grandmother for a flat

To read this story, log in or subscribe<br>Enjoy access to all articles and 25 years of archives, comment and gift articles. Become a subscriber for as low as €1,75 per week.

Read without limitsAlready a subscriber? Login

Unlock article and share

Russian Matryoshka doll came to symbolise complexity of cyberattack structures (Source: dreamwhile)

Topics<br>Author Bio<br>Soňa Weissová is a reporter for Denník N. She studied journalism at Comenius University and worked in several newsrooms of Slovak Radio from 2009 to 2024. In the 2016 Journalism Award, she was nominated for the Czechoslovak Public Choice Award for a radio series about Václav Havel. Since 2019, she has focused on foreign reporting, and following the outbreak of the war in Ukraine she served as head of the radio foreign news desk. At Denník N, she covers Austria, Germany, the European Union, and other current topics.<br>+ Follow author by email