Fake videos alleging widespread election fraud in Germany are ultimately tied to a pro-Russian influence network, which shared posts online ahead of two key elections in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
The footage purported to show postal ballots for the AfD being destroyed or the party being omitted from ballot papers altogether.
However, the videos, which garnered hundreds of thousands of views on X, clearly differed from official voting materials.
Some videos were amplified by accounts known to spread pro-Russian theories and resembled false election-fraud content previously linked to Storm-1516, an influence network attributed to Russia by German intelligence.
One of the videos appears to show a man opening postal-voting documents in Berlin and cutting up ballots marked for the AfD.
This was shared by Alina Lipp, a pro-Russian German blogger placed under EU sanctions in May 2025. The EU has accused her of spreading disinformation regarding Russia's war against Ukraine and of participating in coordinated information manipulation in support of the Kremlin.
She claimed on X there was no evidence the video was fake, with her post gaining more than 630,000 views.
However, German election-monitoring website Wahlrecht.de...
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