Leak reveals Russian agency’s efforts to support Germany’s AfD

A Russian propaganda agency is working to frighten German voters and boost the far-right AfD party, a media group reported Monday, citing leaked documents from the Moscow-based firm.

The Social Design Agency (SDA) had been spreading disinformation in order to increase voters' "fear of the future" and actively strengthen the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD), the media consortium said.

The campaign was being "controlled directly from the Kremlin", according to the report by the Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily, the public broadcasters NDR and WDR and other international media.

According to the report, the Russian agency publishes memes and caricatures "around the clock on social networks", including Facebook, Instagram, X and Telegram, "apparently in close coordination with the presidential administration".

The Sueddeutsche Zeitung said its journalists and media partners had "evaluated internal presentations, tables, lists, graphics and protocols that were leaked by an anonymous source", who claimed SDA was hacked.

One agency document from late 2022 lists several internal "suggestions for key performance indicators" of the campaign, the paper said.

Among the stated goals was reportedly for the AfD to achieve 20 percent in national voting intention surveys according to a trustworthy polling institute whose results are published throughout Europe.

Another directive was to spread the narrative that German support for Ukraine is to blame for the "deepest economic and social crisis in recent history", the Sueddeutsche Zeitung said.

The Munich-based daily quoted the head of Germany's domestic intelligence Thomas Haldenwang as saying his organisation is working hard "to identify the destructive actors and prevent them from destabilising our democracy".

According to the paper, the unnamed source explained their motivation for the leak by writing that "the Kremlin wants to harm Germany and this evil must be stopped".