Over 180 fakes with all sorts of lies and slander against candidates of all parties except the "Alternative for Germany" - this is what the Russian "Matryoshka" operation looks like just before the regional elections in Germany.
Erik Störer looks on and cannot believe his eyes when he sees the first fake videos about him on the Internet. The student is a candidate for the Left in the regional elections in the state of Saxony-Anhalt on September 6.
The claims in the videos are truly disturbing. He is said to have:
suspected of murdering his grandmother to inherit her apartment;
killed a webcam model out of jealousy;
organized illegal gay sex parties at a German university;
helped Weimar University give West German students better grades.
It seems that all of these accusations have been reported by reputable media outlets in Germany. However, these are fabrications, and the videos are not at all the work of the media outlets they claim to be - FACS, "Stern", ARD and "Spiegel".
More than 180 fakes on the eve of the elections
The DW fact-checking team has concluded that the videos in question are part of the Russian propaganda influence operation known as "Matryoshka".
DW has found over 180 fake posts on the X, Bluesky and TikTok platforms. The data was collected by the research team "Antibot4Navalny", which was originally created to uncover disinformation against Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny, who was killed in a Russian penal camp. Now the team has set itself the task of monitoring Russian influence operations on the Internet. DW has collected the fake posts published since June 24. They all appear only on weekdays - the disinformers apparently rest during the weekend.
Many of the posts are targeted attempts to discredit candidates for the upcoming regional elections in Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, as well as for the municipal elections in Lower Saxony - all of which are in September. The elections are considered an important indicator of political attitudes in Germany.
Germany has long been a target of Russian propaganda
Operation "Matryoshka" has long targeted Germany - since September 2023 it has been actively running on several platforms.
Yulia Smirnova is a researcher at the Center for Monitoring, Analysis and Strategy - a non-governmental think tank in Berlin - and has long been monitoring "Matryoshka". Her research shows that all parties in Germany are affected by fake news, with the exception of the right-wing populist "Alternative for Germany", which is partly declared far-right, and Sarah Wagenknecht's left-wing coalition. Otherwise, "Matryoshka" has also focused on other events such as the elections in Armenia and the Olympic Games in France, Smirnova explains. "What is new for Russian campaigns is that they are attacking specific candidates in regional parliamentary elections" in Germany, she notes.
Pablo Maristani de las Casas of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue in London also monitors attempts to exert propaganda political influence. He says that the narratives in "Matryoshka" and other similar campaigns are typically "pro-Russian, anti-German and anti-European".
Who is behind "Matryoshka"?
A direct link to the Russian state cannot be definitively proven, but many of the signs point to Russia, says De las Casas.
The authors of the "Gnida" project, which uses open-source data to analyze and expose Russian disinformation campaigns, have already identified the Russian authors behind "Matryoshka". Their revelations show that the influence operations are directly linked, both technically and substantively, to the notorious Storm-1516 unit, which was already active on the eve of the Bundestag elections.
Smirnova claims that the current operation is "very likely a Russian campaign, carried out on behalf of the presidential administration". It is carried out in Matryoshka primarily through "private companies with experience in the field of digital marketing and political PR campaigns".
How to distinguish fake Matryoshka?
The fakes are of a good technical level, but there are minor discrepancies with the original videos of the real media outlets that publish the fake. Recognition is done using the following questions:
• Can the video in question be found on the official account of the media outlet?
• Do the design and font match those of the real media outlet?
• What is the origin of the footage and is it at all related to the story being told?
• Does the video show any evidence that can be verified?
The answer to these questions very often confirms unequivocally that these are fabricated stories, stolen photos, cloned logos and inaccurate copies of the original video design.
What narratives are being spread before the elections in Germany?
They can be grouped into two main categories:
- discrediting candidates for the elections - for example, through false information that they have committed crimes, are corrupt, use drugs or are involved in sex crimes.
False claims that the mayor of Berlin is involved in an assassination attempt.
- an attempt to drive a wedge between East and West Germans - in a video that supposedly quotes data from the European statistical office "Eurostat", it is claimed, for example, that most West Germans considered German unification to be a mistake. Eurostat responded to DW's inquiry that it had never conducted such a survey.
Many of the fakes suggest that due to the lack of security in the country, the unequal treatment of East and West Germans, as well as problems with infrastructure, it could be expected that a new division of Germany would occur in 2030. According to some of these lies, there was even a plan to rebuild the Berlin Wall.
Are these disinformation campaigns successful?
It is still too early to make a final assessment. Earlier studies have shown that the effect of disinformation campaigns such as "Matryoshka" has so far been rather limited. This is also due to the fact that, unlike X, other platforms such as Bluesky or TikTok often delete content quite quickly.
However, the Left candidate Ster does not want to rely on this and intends to file a complaint against the fake publications. He has already tried unsuccessfully to request that a video about him on X be removed, but the platform saw no"reason to delete it".