Russia Is Targeting Germany With Fake Information as Europe Votes

With European Union elections underway, Germany is the EU country most under attack by Russian disinformation campaigns, a spokesperson for the European Commission tells WIRED.

The warning comes days before Germany votes in EU elections on Sunday and during a campaign season marred by a string of violent attacks against German politicians. “Most cases in our database are related to Germany, which means it is the country in the EU which is most targeted by disinformation,” says Peter Stano, the European Commission’s lead spokesperson for foreign affairs and security policy.

Numerous instances of Russian disinformation targeting Germany are listed on the public disinformation database run by the EU’s diplomatic service. One example references an April case where fake news articles purporting to be published by German magazine Der Spiegel spread on the social platform X. When users clicked on the articles, which criticized the German government, they were taken to the website Spiegel.ltd instead of the magazine’s official domain, Spiegel.de. Although the links no longer work, at least two accounts that shared the fake articles are still online. X did not reply to WIRED’s request for comment.