BERLIN — German Chancellor Friedrich Merz shot dead a mother polar bear and her two cubs during a recent hunting trip to Canada, according to a bogus news article that circulated online this summer.
The false story about Merz emerged under the banner of a sham outlet calling itself “Toronto Journal” after the chancellor’s visit to Canada for the G7 summit in June. Next to an image of a bloodied bear and a mean-looking Merz, fake witnesses were said to have described the “senseless slaughter” of the polar bear family.
“What he did was not only illegal, it was a violation of everything we believe in,” an Inuit guide supposedly said in a fake video interview that was later found to be AI generated.
The false news story is just one example of a rising tide of Russian disinformation targeting European leaders. Among them, Germany’s Merz, in office for just four months, has rapidly become a key target of Russia’s relentless campaign due in great part to his steadfast support of Ukraine, according to experts and intelligence authorities.
“Germany is a particular focus,” said a Western intelligence official. “Russia is able to quickly and flexibly pick up on events in Germany and use them to achieve its goals in the information environment. It is frightening how fast and adaptable this system is, but also how long-term it is designed to be.”
Experts say there’s little secret as to why Merz has become a main target.
“With his very, very outspoken support for Ukraine — how he has mobilized the international community to support Ukraine, and is vocal against Russia — these campaigns have more aggressively targeted Merz,” said Pablo Maristany de las Casas, an analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), who focuses on disinformation.
‘Fake or true?!’
The steady drumbeat of false reports frequently feature on sham news sites, sometime mixed in with legitimate news stories copied from real news sources, and gain traction after they are spread online by a network of pro-Kremlin influencers.
In the case of the polar bear hoax, pro-Kremlin social media influencer Alina Lipp — who was sanctioned by the European Union in May for propagating “Russia’s destabilizing actions abroad” — spread the debunked story.
“Fake or true?!” Lipp said in one post on X. “Elderly Inuit have expressed their disgust at Merz’s behavior.”
The hunting theme is not new in Russian disinformation campaigns. In the lead-up to the 2024 U.S. presidential election, one fake news article falsely asserted that Democratic candidate Kamala Harris had shot and killed an endangered rhino during a visit to Africa. While the Russian campaign continues to plant false narratives around the war in Ukraine in order to influence U.S. politics, since the election much of the focus has turned to discrediting European leaders.
Several campaigns involving Merz have been linked to pro-Russian disinformation operation Storm-1516, which produces elaborate campaigns that create false evidence, sham websites and AI-generated videos.
In Germany’s previous coalition government, led by former Chancellor Olaf Scholz, it was Scholz’s hawkish coalition partners the Greens — advocates of greater military support for Ukraine within the coalition — who were often the more direct targets of Russian disinformation, according to Maristany de las Casas, the ISD expert.
But Merz turned into a clear target once he became the frontrunner to supplant Scholz. Kremlin-backed disinformation campaigns began to portray him as highly erratic and unfit for office due to mental illness. One fake news article falsely claimed Merz suffered from Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder and had tried to commit suicide in 2017, providing fake medical records in support of the baseless claim.
Merz’s relative unpopularity at home also makes him a ripe target for the Kremlin. Approval ratings for Merz’s government have fallen to a record low of 22 percent, according to the latest benchmark ARD Deutschlandtrend survey. Only 26 percent characterized Merz as trustworthy, according to an earlier poll.
No good way to fight back
While no single fake story has had a substantial impact on Merz’s government, the Kremlin-backed firehose of falsehoods aims to hammer away at the chancellor’s credibility over the long haul and to boost his main opponents, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which is close to surpassing Merz’s conservatives in polls and advocates a far more conciliatory approach toward Moscow.
German authorities have no effective way of countering these disinformation efforts, in part due to data privacy laws and the lack of cooperation and information-sharing among federal and state bureaucracies, according to Stefan Meister of the German Council on Foreign Relations. “It’s very difficult for the state to react to this,” Meister said. “That’s the main challenge here.”
A spokesperson for the interior ministry, which coordinates national efforts in fighting disinformation, said the government pursues “a broad, society-wide approach” that includes “raising public awareness and providing target group-specific information to the population.”
But pushing back against the flood of disinformation may prove a losing battle over the long term.
The Kremlin’s “goal is to destabilize, divide, discredit, manipulate, and stir up every contentious issue,” the Western intelligence official said.
The post Germany’s Merz becomes key target of Russian disinformation appeared first on Politico.
