Storm-1516 and R-FBI: Russian Attempts to Interfere in the German Election

13 Feb 2025 | CDN, Reports

Authors: 

Julia Smirnova, CeMAS, Karolin Schwarz, Independent, Saman Nazari, Alliance4Europe.


English language editors:

Joel Haglund and Bia Bittencourt, Alliance4Europe.

Read the German language version of this article on CeMAS website.

This flash report was made possible through collaborations facilitated through the Counter Disinformation Network. 

1. Introduction

Research by CORRECTIV, Newsguard and Gnida Project documented how the Russian influence operation Storm-1516 started targeting Germany after the collapse of the traffic light coalition at the end of 2024. 

Within a short period of time, more than a hundred fabricated news sites with German names were registered. Staged or AI-manipulated videos spread on these fabricated news sites, as well as via influencers – an approach typical of this operation. 

The campaign is closely linked to the Russian organization “Foundation to Battle Injustice” (R-FBI) founded in 2021 by Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin. Before his death in August 2023, Prigozhin was involved in organizing and financing influence operations in Russia and abroad. He founded a troll farm named the “Internet Research Agency“, and it has been reported that some of the people involved in R-FBI previously worked for the Internet Research Agency. R-FBI reportedly portrays itself as a human rights NGO, but is in practice working to generate “legitimacy to Russian propaganda and recruits willing allies”, according to researchers from Clemson University. 

 

  • Shortly before the federal election, the covert operations titled “Storm-1516” influence operations were continued in Germany. At the same time, the “Foundation to Battle Injustice” started spreading disinformation about German parties and politicians.

 

  • The distribution patterns in Germany illustrate a close connection between Storm-1516 and R-FBI, which was previously observed by Clemson University in the context of the US election. Content from Storm-1516 and R-FBI is partly spread by the same German-speaking influencers.

 

  • Both campaigns are trying to discredit the CDU as well as the German Greens in particular, which is done through spreading allegations of sexual violence against minors and other false claims.

 

  • Notably, these campaigns have succeeded in breaking out of the sometimes self-contained disinformation bubble. On TikTok, several videos with false claims received hundreds of thousands of views, and in one case 1.7 million views. R-FBI content was distributed by AfD-affiliated accounts, including by an AfD Member of the German Bundestag on Facebook, X and Telegram.

2. Narratives

The fabricated claims used by the operation are leveraged to discredit politicians from the Greens and the CDU before the election. As part of the Storm-1516 operation, allegations of abuse were spread against Robert Habeck, the Greens’ top candidate. A video by R-FBI also accused the CDU’s top candidate Friedrich Merz and the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen of abuse. Another disinformation article by R-FBI claimed that the Greens and Ukraine were recruiting young people and immigrants to commit crimes in Germany so as to then blame those crimes on the AfD.

The campaigns also attempted to stir up racist and islamophobic sentiments. As part of the Storm 1516 campaign, the false claim was spread that 1.9 million workers from Kenya were coming to Germany. In another case, a false claim was spread that a real missing person had been murdered by a Muslim.

Below is an overview of documented false claims (1-11) and a propagandistic narrative (12) which were disseminated in Germany after November 1, 2024 (the traffic light coalition broke up on November 6, 2024). Storm-1516 was also active in Germany before this date by, for example, spreading false claims about Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and Ukraine. Then, after November 2024, the campaign’s activities intensified.

Table 1: The 12 different articles/ videos and their narratives identified as being amplified by the two campaigns. 

 

3. Distribution via Influencers

 

Clemson University has previously documented a network of influencers sharing English-language content from Storm-1516 and R-FBI in the early phase of dissemination.

In the German-speaking context, a similar pattern emerged, seeing a network of accounts participating in the early phase of dissemination. In some cases, these accounts were indeed real people, such as influencers who operate accounts on multiple platforms. Examples of this phenomenon include pro-Russian activists such as Alena Dirksen, Jovica Jovic and Daniel Gugger. 

In other cases, the accounts were either anonymous or under pseudonyms.  However, we cannot see indicators that their behaviour was automatic. Examples of these accounts include “Wika la Loca” or “The Billboard Truck”. 

The overlap in the dissemination of Storm-1516 and R-FBI content is difficult to dismiss as coincidental – especially given that similar behaviour has been documented in other countries already. 

Before the US Presidential Election, cases in which influencers were offered money to distribute Storm-1516 content were documented. However, whether or not this is the case in Germany cannot be determined using open-source intelligence analysis.

However, the distribution is not limited to these influencers. On X, Storm-1516 and R-FBI content was also distributed by other accounts that typically posted conspiracy-ideological, far-right and pro-AfD content. Between July 1, 2024, and February 11, 2025, links to Storm-1516 domains related to Germany were posted 3,280 times on X.

 

Table 2: Distribution of Storm-1516 (green) and R-FBI (yellow) content – ​​the table lists the German-speaking accounts that distributed Storm-1516 or R-FBI content twice or more often in the early distribution phase.

Several false claims were also spread in other languages ​​- including English, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Czech and Polish. Narrative 11, which falsely claimed that Zelenskyi bought a house that used to belong to Hitler, was spread in English by Chay Bowes, an Irish author who works for the Russian state broadcaster RT and who previously shared Storm-1516 and R-FBI content on several occasions.

4. Viral Videos on TikTok

Content from Storm-1516 and R-FBI is not only distributed as links to fabricated news sites but also as videos. On TikTok, several videos from the campaign received a considerable number of views. The videos were posted by an account called “Jens Menke”. In total, the account posted five videos with content from Storm-1516 and R-FBI, four of which received hundreds of thousands of views. The four viral videos received a total of 3.9 million views.

Since November 2024, these accounts have typically published screen recordings of articles from the Russian state media RT DE – gaining a small number of views. This raises the question of whether the disinformation videos from Storm-1516 and R-FBI may have been artificially amplified.

Image 1: Four videos featuring content from Storm-1516 and R-FBI received 3.9 million views on TikTok.

Image 2: Typical videos from the accounts spreading articles from RT DE, having low views.

5. Distribution of R-FBI content by the AfD

In at least two cases, R-FBI content was picked up and distributed by official AfD accounts. 

AfD Bundestag member Stephan Protschka spread the false claim that the Greens and Ukraine are in Germany recruiting young people and migrants to commit crimes and blame it on AfD. 

Protschka shared this false claim on Facebook, X and Telegram. As of February 9, 2025, his post on:

  • Facebook was shared 230 times, including by Facebook pages of the AfD district associations in Hassberge, Rhön-Grabfeld and Weserbergland;
  • X received 5.4K views and was reposted 201 times (though X’s data on views should be considered unreliable);
  • Telegram received 498 views.

Image 3: An image with the false claim that was shared by Protschka on social media.

In another case, the X Account of the AfD district faction in Hamburg-Mitte spread a video by R-FBI. The video called on German voters to remember on election day that Germany, under the current government, provided financial and military aid to Ukraine, allegedly to the detriment of German citizens. As of February 9, 2025, that post had garnered  391 views. 

6. Distribution of Storm-1516 links on Telegram

On Telegram, links to Storm-1516 domains were spread in German-speaking right-wing extremist and conspiratorial channels and groups.

From July 4, 2024, to January 23, 2025, links to known Storm-1516 domains related to Germany were posted 692 times in a total of 395 channels and groups. The messages on those channels received a total of 4.7 million views. A link to the article with the false accusation of abuse against Habeck was shared most frequently, at a total of 228 times in 114 channels and groups.

7. Conclusions 

  • The campaigns linked to the “Foundation to Battle Injustice” are spreading disinformation ahead of the federal election in Germany and are trying to discredit politicians from the democratic parties, while simultaneously attempting to stir up racist hatred. 
  • The content of the campaigns is spread by German-speaking influencers and picked up by AfD accounts, thus reaching a larger audience and lending legitimacy to deceptive claims
  • Social media platforms must curb the spread of this content, especially before the election. This can be done, for example, by tracking domains used for the campaign and deleting disinformation content
  • State agencies working on mitigating foreign influence operations must track and uncover these campaigns, especially in the period immediately surrounding election day, and consider legal steps to curb them.