The Moscow government's relentless flood of disinformation, both to its own population and abroad, is being broadcast in a variety of forms and by a variety of means. In addition to the long-since thoroughly compromised official Russian press, television channels, and information portals, as well as the once-independent Russian press abroad that has been bought up in recent years, fake pseudo-public and pseudo-independent media outlets are springing up around the world. These are supposedly the voice of the people, strikingly matching the tone of Putin's propaganda.
A typical example of such a new formation is the internet portal ‘Voice of Germany.’ Its founder is the ‘Russian German’ Sergei Viktorovich Filbert.
As stated on the portal's website, ‘The Voice of Germany is a Russian-language information resource translating videos and articles from the German media into Russian.’ The project's official mission is ‘...to promote rapprochement between the peoples of Russia and Germany in cultural and political, as well as business and economic aspects. The project team aims to convey reliable information and the viewpoints of various figures and citizens of these two great nations in the information space.’ There is no biography of the editor-in-chief of The Voice of Germany, Sergei Filbert (born 1982), on the website. It is only known that he emigrated to Germany in 2002 and ‘worked as a technician.’ The events in Ukraine in 2014 prompted him to create the information portal. As Filbert said in an interview: ‘For thirteen years, I had no interest in politics... But the echoes of the Maidan reached me. I was outraged and began looking for like-minded people. 95% of Germans don't want a confrontation with Russia; not everyone thinks as official propaganda dictates. We don't just want to tell Germans what Russia really is, but also to set an informational precedent in the German media landscape.’ In another 2016 interview, Filbert outlined the reasons for creating the portal even more clearly: ‘The turning point was the events of February 2014 in Ukraine, during the so-called Euromaidan. I watched the reports from Ukraine with horror, as they couldn't be called news, as real bloody battles were unfolding in that country—first on the Maidan, and later in the east of the country. These events opened my eyes not only to how the media works, but also to the fact that information is a weapon and can be used to turn even friendly nations against each other. In Germany, coverage of the events in Ukraine was accompanied by a rise in anti-Russian sentiment among the population.’
This text, using the jargon typical of Russian propaganda, articulates its key objectives at the time: discrediting Ukraine, justifying Russian aggression against it, and battling for German public opinion. Anti-Americanism is also present. As Filbert explains, the portal's name was chosen ‘...as a counterpoint to Voice of America, which was not renowned for its objectivity during the Cold War, nor is it even now.’
According to the portal's founder, it is financed exclusively by private individuals: ‘...The Voice of Germany is not funded by any state structures or bodies, commercial or non-profit organisations.’ Judging by the above information, The Voice of Germany is one of many propaganda centres—‘agents of influence’—created by Moscow abroad in parallel with the seizure of Crimea and aggression in Donbas in 2014. In this regard, Filbert's biography, which remains largely unknown (place of study, profession, etc.), is of particular interest.
In 2017, the website initially listed the names of four more employees: one translator (Vladimir Safonov) from Germany, one translator (Polina Buzyleva) from Russia, one translator (Diana Odintsova) from Kazakhstan, and a web designer (Andrey Lobur) from Russia. In 2023, the previous names of the translators were replaced by new ones – Elena Fischer and Elena Kuprina (without specifying the country). The portal's activities began on April 1, 2014, with the posting of a Russian translation of a speech by ‘German financial expert’ Dirk Müller on its YouTube channel. The programme was titled ‘Dirk Müller on the situation in Ukraine. The end of the EU is near.’ Komsomolskaya Pravda published the text of the speech on April 19 under the headline: ‘German economist Dirk Müller: The US staged a coup in Ukraine, and they take us for idiots.’ The programme was pure pro-Putin propaganda. As were all of Dirk Müller's numerous appearances on ‘The Voice of Germany.’ Dirk Müller (born 1969) is a well-known German stockbroker and author of popular books on economics, which some critics believe contain anti-American ‘conspiracy theories.’ In 2014, Müller ‘in connection with the crisis in Ukraine, supported the policies of Russian President Putin and began criticising US and EU policies toward Russia.’ It was likely during this time that Müller became a Russian agent of influence.
The Voice of Germany has published translations of 23 of Dirk Müller's speeches on his website, cashkurs.com. The most recent was in June 2018.
The portal also published dozens of translations of speeches by Sahra Wagenknecht, the first vice-chairwoman of Germany's Left Party. Wagenknecht is known as a staunch Stalinist and supporter of Putin's policies. For example, her speech on January 28, 2023, was published with the subtitle: ‘Sahra Wagenknecht: Corrupt Zelenskyy is dragging Germany into war with Russia for the sake of US interests!’
Another regular on ‘The Voice of Germany’ is video blogger Ove Schattauer, popularised by Russian media under the nickname ‘the angry German.’ Schattauer releases videos in which he feigns anger at American and EU policies and praises Putin and his policies. Here's an example of Schattauer's citation in the Russian press: ‘In EU countries, more and more people are losing faith in the local press and are starting to go underground. Peace Movement activist Ove Schattauer, who earned the online nickname ’the angry German‘ for his heated remarks about the lying official media, declared that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov are the best politicians in the world.’ Schattauer's activity, which frequently travels to Russia and gives numerous interviews, exemplifies the most brazen and shameless activity of a Russian agent of influence, working for domestic propaganda at the lowest, most mass level. Here is a typical quote from one of his videos from 2015, cited in the Russian press:
‘No one is saying in our lousy, godforsaken media, in these vile state lackeys, that America, American foreign policy, is to blame for all these troubles. No one is saying it, everyone is silent. The Americans supported the Islamic State in the fight against Assad, just as they supported the Taliban in the fight against the Russians. They also supported the Nazis to fight against the communists, against Russia, against the Soviet Union. The Americans are ready to support even the devil himself to achieve their goals,’ said Ove Schattauer, an activist with the German movement ‘For Peace.’ The Voice of Germany website features two dozen videos of Schattauer and his interviews with the Russian press, translated into Russian. Schattauer's popularity in the Russian press is thanks to Sergei Filbert, who began translating his video adaptations in 2015.
Another aspect of Voice of Germany's work is organising the Berlin-Moscow ‘Germany for Friendship with Russia’ car rallies. The first car rally, which involved approximately 70 vehicles and over 200 participants, took place in August 2016. The organisers were Sergei Filbert, Ove Schattauer, and Rainer Rothfuss.
Rainer Rothfuß (born 1971) was a professor of geography at the University of Tübingen (until 2015). In 2015, he was removed from his post as chairman of the German section of the International Society for Human Rights (IGFM, Internationale Gesellschaft für Menschenrechte, Deutsche Sektion e.V.) due to his support for Russian policy in the Ukrainian crisis.
The rally was seen off by Willy Wimmer (1948), a former member of the Bundestag and former vice-president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), another opponent of US and EU policy towards the Ukrainian crisis.
The premise of the rally was formulated by Olga Zinovieva, widow of writer Alexander Zinoviev and president of Putin's international public organisation, the Russia-Germany Society: ‘The amount of global negative information about Russia, its policies, and fabrications about life in Russia has developed into a new quality—mistrust of official propaganda in Germany, Brussels, and NATO. Germans—reasonable and reasonable people—have begun to wonder: 'Yes, Russia has its shortcomings and problems, but if everything is so bad, how come Russia hasn't fallen apart and collapsed yet? And if Russia so wants to attack the Baltic states and Europe, then why isn't Russia, but NATO, amassing new military units and military equipment at the borders of NATO countries and conducting exercises over vast areas?'’
The propaganda content of the rally was anti-American and anti-NATO. The main thesis was that Europe and the United States were preparing for war with Russia, and therefore supporting Russia in the Ukrainian conflict was a fight for peace. At the NATO military base in Šiauliai, Lithuania: ‘The participants of the rally addressed their fellow citizens – NATO servicemen, 'Germans, come home!'’ This grandiose and expensive propaganda operation involved numerous Russian agents of influence from Germany and Russian propaganda pseudo-public organisations that hosted and accompanied them in Russia. The latter are listed in Zinovieva's article, published on the website of the Moscow House of Nationalities: the Russia-Germany Society, the Moscow Regional Branch of the International Police Association, the Musa Jalil ‘Tribute to Memory’ Foundation, the ‘Peace for Life’ Foundation, and the Marshal V.I. Chuikova, the Moscow House of Nationalities, the Night Wolves biker club (at whose residence the concert was held), and the Union of Veterans of the Group of Forces in Germany (GSOVG, GSOVG, ZGV). The All-Russian Police Association (a section of the International Police Association) is an organisation closely tied to other Russian intelligence agencies. Its deputy board of trustees is former FSB director Sergei Stepashin.
The President of the Musa Jalil Tribute Support Fund is Colonel of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Gayar Khalilovich Shabanov.
The Peace for Life Foundation is a military-political propaganda organisation whose goals include ‘developing patriotic initiatives across various areas in society, strengthening the prestige of military service,’ and ‘assisting government agencies in implementing patriotic education in the country and shaping positive public opinion around patriotic themes in Russia.’ The foundation's president, Alexander Novikov, is a graduate of the V.I. Lenin Military-Political Academy and editor-in-chief of the national political and business journal ‘Our Power: Deeds and Faces.’
The rally participants also spoke with the Youth Policy Commission of the United Russia Social Platform and presented representatives of the Russia-Germany Society with a letter to the President of Russia expressing gratitude for their support and participation in the fight for peace and friendship between the Russian and German peoples. They also presented President Vladimir Putin with a painting by Christina Seibel of Alzey, depicting a landscape near Zellertal, on their behalf. Official partners of the project also include the All-Russian Veterans' Public Organisation ‘Combat Brotherhood,’ the Public Youth Movement for the Creation of a Youth Parliament in St. Petersburg, the Culture Commission of the St. Petersburg Youth Collegium, the All-Russian Youth Public Organisation ‘MIR,’ and others. ‘Combat Brotherhood’ is a society uniting veterans and participants of all the wars waged by the Soviet Union in the final decades of its existence. The organisation is strictly pro-Soviet, chauvinistic, and militaristic. It has an international branch:
The International Union of Veterans' Associations ‘Combat Brotherhood’ is an international organisation in the post-Soviet space, representing a voluntary international public association of national veterans' associations—legal entities from the CIS, Baltic, and Bulgarian countries. The International Union ‘Combat Brotherhood’ is the successor to the International Union of Veterans' Organisations (Participants) of Local Wars and Military Conflicts ‘Combat Brotherhood—Without Borders.’
The All-Russian Youth Public Organisation ‘Mir’ is a purely propaganda organisation, ‘a group of proactive young people whose goal is to educate youth in peaceful and patriotic values based on the examples of Russian heroes.’ Since 2015, ‘Mir’ has been a member of the Government Commission on Compatriots Abroad, chaired by Sergei Lavrov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation.
The rally has an official website, which is also the website of the Druschba Global e.V. association, based in Leipzig, and was registered only in February 2017. It is led by Rainer Rothfuss.
In addition to Rainer Rothfuss, Ove Schattauer, and Sergei Filbert, the society's board includes Konstantin Ermisch (born 1977) and Eduard Klein (born 1982). The latter two are the owners of the Panevrasiya travel agency in Leipzig, natives of the USSR, and have lived in Germany since 1995.
Apparently, Panevraziya is also involved in the technical side of organising motor rallies.
Media support for the project was provided by KenFM, Free21, RT Deutsch, Voice of Germany, Life News, Dozhd TV Channel, and Life78 TV Channel. Among the channels providing media support for the rally was Dozhd TV Channel, considered to be in opposition to the Putin regime.
The second Berlin-Moscow auto rally took place in July-August 2017. According to the Russkiy Mir Foundation website, approximately 350 people from 16 countries participated, traveling across Russia along seven routes, including visits to Crimea and Chechnya.
Apparently, there were problems with organising the rally and recruiting volunteers, because it was initially expected that about a thousand German residents would participate in the rally.
Ov Shattauer, who visited Grozny, gave a delightful review of Chechnya, published by the website ‘Russkiy Mir’: ‘If you tell someone that Russia invaded here, as our media claims... everyone will laugh. The people there are very friendly, cheerful, and welcoming.’
A curious detail. Several months before the start, the Druschba Global e.V. association, with the support of the Saxon and All-German Coordination Councils of Compatriots, was to organise a children's drawing competition, ‘Peace and Friendship through the Eyes of Children.’ The best drawing was to be presented to the rally participants in Berlin for delivery to the Russian Presidential Administration ‘on behalf of the children of Germany and the rally participants.’ The ‘Coordination Councils of Compatriots’ are Moscow-created propaganda organisations for emigrants, part of the International Council of Russian Compatriots, which was founded in 2004. They currently exist in 52 countries.
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The activities of the Voice of Germany are a good example of how Putin's propaganda mechanism is built with the help of agents of influence abroad.
First, under the guise of a public initiative, an intelligence centre—an information portal—is created. In this case, with the help of a single Russian émigré with a shady background and several marginalized German figures with exotic views. Their task is to supply the centre with pro-Putin propaganda materials, which are then translated into Russian and published in Russia as the opinions of Western experts, academics, and public figures.
Then, mass events are organised in the form of motorcades, attended by hundreds of people – both patriotic Russian émigrés and pro-Putin (recruited) Germans. In Russia, numerous domestic pseudo-public organisations, funded by the state and engaged in chauvinistic and militaristic, Soviet-style propaganda, are joining the process. From the outside, this may indeed appear to be some kind of spontaneous social movement. Upon closer examination, it becomes clear that all organisations participating in such events – both German and Russian – are simulating public activity and are financed from Moscow. The goal of the entire project is to provide propaganda support for Putin's policies within Russia (primarily) and to recruit agents abroad – among German and Russian émigré communities.
The involvement of a large number of paramilitary organisations—associations of various army veterans, police veterans, and special services veterans—is characteristic of this enterprise. In this environment, Soviet prejudices and Soviet patriotic ideology are still cultivated more successfully than in any other segment of Russian society. Moreover, Putin's current propaganda primarily appeals to the military victories of the Soviet past. These pockets of Soviet patriotism are also initiated and financed by the state.
A key element is the children's drawing contest. The children of émigrés, and consequently their parents, are drawn into the competition for the most patriotic drawing, which will be presented to Putin. This is a way to indoctrinate the younger generation, who will one day become Russian agents of influence in Germany.
Another interesting point is the presence of travel agency owners among the organisers of the car rallies. It's quite clear that travel agencies with Russian owners, involved in tourism to Russia, are obvious and easy targets for recruitment by Russian intelligence services. On the one hand, they constantly deal with Russian visas and, consequently, with embassy officials. On the other hand, they deal with numerous people traveling to Russia, which opens up extensive opportunities for contacts with potential recruitment targets within this community. This also offers them extensive organisational capabilities. For example, the May 9, 2017, demonstrations in Augsburg were also organised by Elina Zharkova, the owner of a local travel agency. The Voice of Germany and its offshoots offer insight into the general principles of how Russian agencies of influence are created. They emerge and spread like a colony of bacteria. The primary cell then sprouts daughter organisations, ostensibly acting as independent public organisations. But upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that they are operated by the same people, simulating social activity, and performing common tasks.
Many such structures, controlled from Moscow, are linked together into a common network, the scope of whose activity extends far beyond the borders of the host country and interacts with similar structures in neighboring countries.