Henke went on to claim that the AfD has won the support of most Russian speakers in his area, largely, he said, because they did not understand German well enough to read the lies promoted by mainstream news outlets and German public broadcasters.
“They do not become victims of the official propaganda to the extent that the local population does,” Henke said.
Russian speakers in Germany, of course, have many more Russian-language choices, including social media platforms. On Telegram, for instance, Russian-language channels that puppet Kremlin propaganda on the war in Ukraine have drawn large numbers of subscribers in Germany.
The AfD first began targeting Russian speakers around 2016, when Russian state media outlets operating in Germany peddled a fabricated story about a Russian-German girl who had supposedly been raped by Arab migrants in Marzahn-Hellersdorf. The fake story was seen as a Russian disinformation campaign meant to sow division and discord in Germany — and the Russian state outlets that pushed the narrative have since been banned.
Sensing political opportunity in the Russian-speaking community following the episode, the AfD began to translate its electoral program into Russian, started hanging up Russian-language posters and put forward candidates with Russian backgrounds, said Liliia Sablina, a Ph.D. student at Central European University studying the political mobilization of Russian speakers in Germany.
“This all gave Russian speakers in Germany a sense of belonging — like, ‘Yes, finally, there is a party here that is not afraid to talk to us,’” Sablina said. “None of the other German parties were paying particular attention to them.”