fact finder
Misleading reports about alleged attacks on people of Russian origin in Germany are circulating on social media. Experts warn against targeted disinformation to heat up the mood.
“Racial hatred in Hittfeld near Hamburg – unknown fascists destroy KVG buses because the person responsible has Russian roots” – that’s what a user on Facebook claims. A video of buses, some of which were badly damaged, goes on to say: “Whether it’s the unvaccinated and now the Russians, who are blamed for things they couldn’t influence at all.”
The claim that the buses were damaged for anti-Russian reasons also appears in messenger services and other Facebook profiles. On the Telegram channel of an anonymous news site alone, a corresponding video was viewed around 380,000 times in just a few days.
Police and companies deny
But what about the reports? In fact, there was serious vandalism on buses from KVG Stade GmbH & Co. KG in Hittfeld in northern Lower Saxony. The regional transport company became the target of strangers at the end of February.
However, there is not a single indication of a political background. The police in Buchholz said this on request tagesschau.de with.
The company itself also emphasized on request that such reports were fictitious. “The allegation irritates us because it is completely unfounded,” a company spokesman said tagesschau.de. The KVG is owned by the Osthannover transport company and the Elbe-Weser railway and transport company. “Even our managing directors do not have a ‘Russian’ background.”
More unsubstantiated claims
The false reports about the allegedly anti-Russian attack in northern Lower Saxony are mainly spread by profiles that share a lot of similar content. With many videos and photos, it is completely unclear where and when they were taken and what exactly can be seen there. Nevertheless, they are cited as evidence of an allegedly extremely aggressive mood against Russian speakers.
According to their own statements, two profiles that are particularly active in this context are in Crimea and the separatist areas in eastern Ukraine. They share Russian propaganda, such as the news that the Ukrainian president allegedly wants to make a neo-Nazi with a criminal record head of the secret service. The source for this is an old article from a communist portal, in which no evidence whatsoever is given for this claim.
One of these particularly active Facebook profiles was only set up on February 28, 2022. The alleged “news and media site” has no imprint and no information about the operators.
Reports of hostilities
In fact, there is said to have been hostility towards Russian-born or Russian-speaking people in Germany. The extent of the problem cannot be determined with certainty, partly because many incidents have not yet been investigated.
The Russian embassy in Berlin and the “International People’s Council of Germans from Russia” are calling for reports of such cases.
According to the information on the association’s website, the chairman of the “People’s Council” is the former AfD member of the Bundestag Waldemar Herdt, who traveled to a Russian conference in the annexed Crimea in 2019. There he met according to their own statements including the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Marija Vladimirovna Zakharova.
The Russian embassy claimed on Twitter that it had already received hundreds of reports.
Motorcycle group is the first to share the petition
In addition to the questionable reports of alleged attacks, several online petitions started by previously unknown Russian-German groups emerged on Sunday. A data analysis shows that the first Facebook page to share one of the petitions is a German-Russian motorcycle group.
A man can be seen on the motorcycle group’s Facebook page who, according to those familiar with the scene, was instrumental in organizing demonstrations in 2016 – in protest against the alleged rape of a German-Russian girl by refugees. The “Lisa case” caused a stir at the time, and even the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov got involved.
Disinformation warning
Experts fear that actual hostilities and invented attacks in Germany will be instrumentalized in order to first heat up the mood on social media and then to organize protests.
Stephan Kramer, President of the Thuringian Office for the Protection of the Constitution, referred in an interview tagesschau.de to Russian propaganda reports that there would allegedly be pogroms against Russian-speaking people in Germany, among other things. This is clearly a disinformation campaign to create unrest. It is all the more important to investigate actual hostilities, emphasized Kramer.
Miro Dittrich from the “Center for Monitoring, Analysis and Strategy” said in an interview tagesschau.de“Already during the so-called refugee crisis, Russia was using a network of Russian-Germans to spread disinformation, such as in the case of Lisa, who allegedly disappeared. Even now we see how the devaluations of Russian-Germans with invented stories, which unfortunately sometimes actually take place, lead to an alleged ‘pogrom against Russian-Germans ‘ be exaggerated’.
Sergey Lagodinsky, Green MEP in the European Parliament, warned in an interview tagesschau.de, the development is highly dangerous. Action must be taken quickly to distinguish actual cases of hostility from targeted disinformation.