German election: From AI influencers to Russian disinformation, the far-right is getting a leg up online

Published

3 months ago

February 21, 2025

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Voters in Germany are being exposed to copious far-right narratives online from AI-generated content and Russian disinformation campaigns.

Experts monitoring social media say Russian-based groups are involved, including “Doppelganger” and “Storm-1516”, which US officials found to be active in America’s election last year.

Some of these campaigns are using artificial intelligence to spread their messaging ahead of Sunday’s vote, which will see Germany elect a new Bundestag.

Germany’s far-right party Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) has been more active on social media than other parties during the campaign and is in second place in opinion polls.

Methods are said to include creating fake TV news stories or deep-fake videos of apparent “witnesses” or “whistle blowers” fabricating stories about prominent politicians.

For example, in November 2024, shortly before the snap election was called, a video was published that claimed one parliamentary member who is an outspoken supporter of Ukraine was a Russian spy.

Dr Marcus Faber, a member of the Free Democratic Party and head of the government’s defence committee, was targeted in a video which used AI to suggest a former adviser was making the claim. We asked Dr Faber for his reaction to the video but he was unable to comment at this time.

In another video an 18-year-old woman accused a German minister of child abuse – the accusation was false, and the video was made using AI.

A recent report from the Center for Monitoring, Analysis and Strategy, or CeMAS, a non-profit thinktank specialising in the analysis of disinformation and right-wing extremism, and Alliance 4 Europe which aims to combat digital disinformation, has linked both stories to the Russian disinformation campaign Storm-1516.

The researchers have also been tracking the Doppelganger campaign, run by a Russian PR company Social Design Agency, widely reported to have links to the Kremlin.

They have found the group’s main tactic is to create fake news articles, which often resemble well-known publications. A network of social media accounts then share and spread those articles across different platforms.

Posts will often appear to be from a worried citizen, like the one below that reads: “I am concerned that aid to Ukraine will impact our ability to invest in our own infrastructure and social security systems.”

The post links to a fake news article criticising Germany’s funding for the war in Ukraine, on a fake website resembling the German newspaper Der Spiegel.

“Different Russian campaigns are trying, on the one hand, to discredit established parties,” says Julia Smirnova, a senior researcher for CeMAS. “They’re also trying to boost the far-right AfD.”

“It’s not about just one fake video or one fake article. There’s a systematic effort to constantly create this flood of false stories, flood of propaganda stories, and continue spreading them,” she says.

From mid-December 2024 to mid-January 2025, CeMAS found a total of 630 German-language posts with typical Doppelgänger patterns on X alone.

For Ferdinand Gehringer, a cybersecurity policy adviser, Russian interference online isn’t a surprise.

“There are clear objectives for Russia to interfere and to also manipulate our public opinion,” he says.

From the party’s plan to stop sending arms to Ukraine to their calls to ramp up imports of Russian gas, he says “Russia sees within the AfD’s program and ideas the best options for future cooperation”.

CeMAS has found at least one case where a fake story that originated from a Russian campaign was spread by an AfD politician.

Stephan Protschka, a parliamentary member, posted on his social media channels that the Green Party was working with Ukraine to recruit people to commit crimes and blame them on the AfD, a narrative researchers say originated from a Russian disinformation campaign.

Sky News asked Mr Protschka for comment, but he did not respond.

We also reached out to Social Design Agency to respond to the allegations against the Doppelganger group. They did not respond. We were unable to contact anyone behind the Storm-1516 campaign for comment.

Inside Germany

Beyond the extremes of Russian-led disinformation campaigns, far-right groups within Germany are also ramping up their online presence. Take Larissa Wagner, an AI-generated social media influencer.

“Hey guys, I’m just on my way to the polling station. I’m daring this time. I’m voting for AfD,” she said in a video posted to her X account on 22 September 2024, the day of the Brandenburg state election.

Her accounts on Twitter and Instagram were both created in the last year and her regular videos espouse far-right narratives, like telling Syrian immigrants to “pack your bags and go back home”.

She even says she interned with the right-wing magazine Compact, which was banned by the German government last year.

It’s unclear who created Larissa. When Sky News messaged to ask her on Instagram she replied: “I think it’s completely irrelevant who controls me. Influencers like me are the future…

“Like anyone else, I want to share my perspective on things. Every influencer does that. But because I’m young, attractive, and right-wing, it’s framed as ‘influencing the political discourse’.”

Ferdinand Gehringer notes that her posts have become more radical over time. “The potential for influence is significant-especially since the presence of a young, attractive woman increases audience engagement,” he adds.

The far-right’s use of generative AI on social media goes beyond characters like Larissa. A report this week from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue assessed the scale of its use, identifying 883 posts since April 2023 that included images, memes and music videos made using generative AI.

The posts came from far-right supporters as well as the AfD itself – party accounts published more than 50 posts that contained generative AI content in October alone.

The AfD is using AI more than other parties, says Pablo Maristany de las Casas, an analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue who co-authored the report. “They’re clearly the one actor that is exploiting this technology the most,” he says.

The messaging in the far-right content they sampled falls into two categories: attacking narratives, like AI-generated images of migrants portrayed as violent criminals, and narratives that glorify traditional German values.

When these two narratives are combined, “the far-right community feels more united in the so-called cultural fight against these groups that they’re attacking,” says Mr Maristany de las Casas.

Take Remigration Song, a promotional song and music video commissioned by the now-disbanded youth wing of the AfD. It was produced using AI and advocates the mass deportation of immigrants – known as remigration.

It’s this home-grown content that some experts say could affect public opinions.

A recent survey by the Bertelsmann Foundation, a thinktank which promotes social reform, showed that 80% of Germans consider disinformation on the internet to be a major problem for society and 88% agreed that disinformation is spread to influence political opinions.

“Just the foreign information itself is probably not going to shift attitudes” says senior researcher Cathleen Berger. “I think the impact only comes when it is being picked up by domestic actors”.

Additional reporting from Olive Enokido-Lineham, OSINT producer; Mary Poynter, Data and Forensics producer.

The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open-source information. Through multimedia storytelling, we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.

World

British surgeon working in Gaza says it is now ‘a slaughterhouse’ amid Israeli bombardment

Published

5 hours ago

May 18, 2025

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British surgeon working in Gaza says it is now 'a slaughterhouse' amid Israeli bombardment

A British surgeon working in southern Gaza has compared the region to a “slaughterhouse” because of the daily bombardment from Israeli forces.

Dr Tom Potokar, who is based at the European Hospital near Khan Younis in southern Gaza, offered his assessment of Israel’s military offensive after Palestinian health officials reported at least 130 people were killed overnight into Sunday.

Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have confirmed their troops have begun “extensive ground operations throughout the northern and southern Gaza Strip”.

In a video, Dr Potokar said it was “another day of devastation here in Gaza”, adding: “The stories coming from the north… absolutely horrific… particularly around the Indonesian Hospital.”

“I mean, it’s difficult to describe in words what’s happening here… [with the] constant sound of bombardment jets overhead.

“If Cambodia was the killing fields, then Gaza now is the slaughterhouse.”

His reference to Cambodia’s killing fields refers to when more than a million people were murdered in mass executions and buried by the extreme communist guerrilla group, the Khmer Rouge, under Pol Pot, between 1975 and 1979.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said 464 people had died in Israeli military strikes in the week to Sunday.

In a statement on Sunday, IDF said its air force struck “over 670 Hamas terror targets throughout the Gaza Strip to disrupt enemy preparations and support ground operations” over the past week.

Dr Potokar described the impact on those on the ground, saying: “We’ve been operating all morning so far and [treating] awful explosive injuries… [including] one young woman with leg fracture and shoulder fracture and a large wound on her buttock, who came in yesterday and is not yet aware that everyone in our family was killed in the onslaught.”

Israel has launched an escalation of its war in Gaza to ramp up pressure on Hamas, seize territory, displace Palestinians to the south and take greater control over the distribution of aid.

On Sunday, it announced and launched “extensive” new ground operations in Gaza.

It came after airstrikes killed more than 100 people, including dozens of children, overnight and into Sunday, hospitals and medics said, and forced northern Gaza’s main hospital to close.

A spokesperson for the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said: “Complete families were wiped off the civil registration record by Israeli bombardment”.

The ministry also said the bombardment had forced the closure of the Indonesian Hospital, the main hospital serving people in northern Gaza.

Nasser hospital, in the southern city of Khan Younis, said more than 48 people – mostly women and children – were killed in the area which includes tents sheltering displaced people.

In Deir al Balah, in central Gaza, at least 12 people were killed in three separate strikes, according to Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital and the Nuseirat camp’s Awda Hospital.

Meanwhile, the Gaza health ministry and the Palestinian Civil Defence – which operates under the Hamas-run government – reported that 19 people were killed in several strikes in Jabalia in northern Gaza.

The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the strikes.

Read more from Sky News:
How Israel has escalated Gaza bombing campaign

Ceasefire talks are taking place in Qatar this weekend – with Israel saying they involve discussions on ending the war as well as a truce and hostage deal.

A statement from the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said any lasting truce must include the demilitarisation of Gaza as well as the exile of Hamas militants.

But a senior Israeli official added there had been little progress so far during talks in Qatar’s capital Doha.

Sky News Arabia reported Hamas had proposed freeing about half its Israeli hostages in exchange for a two-month ceasefire and the release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

A Palestinian official close to the discussions said: “Hamas is flexible about the number of hostages it can free, but the problem has always been over Israel’s commitment to end the war.”

World

Russia launches ‘heaviest drone attack’ on Ukraine since start of war

Published

6 hours ago

May 18, 2025

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Russia launches 'heaviest drone attack' on Ukraine since start of war

Russia has launched its heaviest drone attack on Ukraine since the start of the war in 2022, the Ukrainian military has said.

A total of 273 exploding drones were reportedly fired across the Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk regions between Saturday night and Sunday morning.

Some 88 were intercepted and 128 “lost”, having been electronically jammed, Ukraine’s air force said.

It passes the previous record of 267 drones on the eve of the war’s third anniversary earlier this year.

In Kyiv, a 28-year-old woman was killed, and three people, including a four-year-old child were injured, according to regional governor Mykola Kalashnyk.

Just outside the city, firefighters fought to control flames at business premises destroyed by drone attacks. Russia has not commented.

It comes ahead of a planned phone call between US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

Mr Trump has promised to speak to Mr Putin and then President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday about “ending the war” after the first direct talks between their two countries failed to yield a ceasefire this week.

Mr Putin snubbed Mr Zelenskyy’s offer of face-to-face talks in Turkey.

A source from the Ukrainian negotiation team told Sky News that Russia threatened “eternal war” during talks between officials.

Kremlin representatives are also reported to have threatened that Ukraine may lose “more than just loved ones” while at the negotiating table.

Talks did bring promise of the largest ever prisoner swap between the two nations – involving 1,000 prisoners of war on each side.

Ukraine’s military intelligence chief said he hoped it would take place over the next week.

Elsewhere in Sumy, northeastern Ukraine, on Saturday, nine people were killed and seven injured after a bus evacuating civilians was hit by a Russian drone in the town of Bilopillia, according to Ukrainian officials.

On Sunday, Mr Zelenskyy was in Vatican City attending the inauguration of Pope Leo XIV.

He was pictured shaking hands with US Vice President JD Vance after their tense clash at the White House earlier this year.

World

More than 100 people killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza, say medics

Published

6 hours ago

May 18, 2025

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More than 100 people killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza, say medics

At least 103 people have been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza overnight and into Sunday, according to hospitals and medics.

Israel has launched an escalation of its war in Gaza to ramp up pressure on Hamas, seize territory, displace Palestinians to the south and take greater control over the distribution of aid.

Meanwhile, Israel says talks with Hamas taking place in Qatar this weekend involve discussions on ending the war as well as a truce and hostage deal.

Addressing the strikes overnight, a spokesperson for the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said: “Complete families were wiped off the civil registration record by Israeli bombardment”.

The ministry also said airstrikes had forced the closure of the Indonesian Hospital, the main hospital serving people in northern Gaza.

Nasser hospital, in the southern city of Khan Younis, said more than 48 people – mostly women and children – were killed in the area, including tents sheltering displaced people.

In Deir al Balah, in central Gaza, at least 12 people were killed in three separate strikes, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital and the Nuseirat camp’s Awda hospital.

Meanwhile, the Gaza health ministry and the Palestinian Civil Defence – which operates under the Hamas-run government – reported that 19 people were killed in multiple strikes in Jabalia, northern Gaza.

The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the latest strikes.

Peace talks include ending war in Gaza

It comes as peace talks between Israel and Hamas continue in Qatar this weekend, including discussions about ending the war.

A statement from the Israeli Prime Minister’s office said on Sunday that any lasting truce must include the demilitarisation of Gaza as well as the exile of Hamas militants.

But a senior Israeli official added that the talks in the capital, Doha, had made little progress so far.

Sky News Arabia reported that Hamas had proposed freeing about half its Israeli hostages in exchange for a two-month ceasefire and the release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

A Palestinian official close to the discussions said: “Hamas is flexible about the number of hostages it can free, but the problem has always been over Israel’s commitment to end the war.”

Four journalists killed in Israeli airstrikes

Details have emerged on Sunday about the deaths of four Palestinian journalists in Gaza following Israeli airstrikes.

Abdel Rahman al Abadleh was missing for two days before his body was found in the town of al Qarara in southern Gaza.

Three other journalists were also killed following strikes on Saturday. Aziz al Hajjar, his wife and children, died in the Bir al Naaja neighbourhood of northern Gaza.

Ahmed al Zenati, his wife Noor al Madhoun and their children Mohammad and Khaled, were killed in Khan Younis.

Meanwhile, in Deir al Balah, central Gaza, Nour Qandil, her husband Khaled Abu Seif, and their young daughter were also killed.

Israel has blocked the entry of medical, food and fuel supplies into Gaza since the start of March. It is attempting to pressurise Hamas into freeing Israeli hostages and has approved plans that could involve seizing the whole of Gaza and controlling aid.

‘Systematic campaign targeting hospitals’

Earlier on Sunday, Gaza’s health ministry issued a statement accusing Israel of “intensifying its systematic campaign to target hospitals”.

“After putting the European Gaza Hospital out of service a few days ago, the Israeli occupation has intensified its targeting and siege of the Indonesian Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip since dawn today,” it added.

Israel has previously denied deliberately targeting civilians and accused Hamas of using hospitals for military purposes.

This week, Israel said it had bombed the European Hospital because it was home to an underground Hamas base, but Sky News analysis has cast doubt on its evidence.

Houthis launch missile towards Israel

Separately, the Israeli military said on Sunday it had intercepted a missile launched from Yemen towards Israel.

Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis said they had targeted Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv with two ballistic missiles.

The Houthis have fired at Israel because of the plight of Palestinians in Gaza, while Israel has carried out airstrikes in response, including one on 6 May that damaged Yemen’s main airport in Sanaa and killed several people.

The war in Gaza began on 7 October 2023, when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and abducting 251 others.

Israel’s military response has killed more than 53,000 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.