Satirical Video Criticism: Germany’s Aid to Ukraine and Allegations Against Alternative for Germany

The footage shows an idyllic German home. A family watches a speech on television Chancellor Olaf Scholzdedicated to the war in Ukraine. Suddenly, Bundeswehr soldiers ring the doorbell and start confiscating various valuables and people’s savings. One of the soldiers carries a folder labeled “Help for Zelensky”. Another puts a portrait of the Ukrainian president on the wall and says “Hail Zelensky!”.

The family remains in their empty house, and the words “Welcome NATO into your home” appear on the screen. It follows information that “more than 22 billion euros” have already been sent from Germany to Ukraine since the beginning of 2022.

Criticism of Germany’s aid to Ukraine

The entire video is subtitled in Russian – including Scholz’s speech, which the family in the clip watches on TV. The only two things left in German in the one-minute video, are “Guten Tag” (Good day) and “Heil Zelenskyy” (Hail, Zelensky). Thus, the video is comprehensible to both German and Russian speakers. However, the video is mainly distributed among the latter.

The video posted on the OstashkoNews Telegram channel of a Russian journalist has nearly 118,000 views. There it is accompanied by the following information: “It is claimed that the authors of the video are members of the Alternative for Germany party.” In the video, NATO soldiers take everything from Germans to send to help Ukraine. They also make them greet Ukrainian leader Zelensky with the Nazi salute.”

This satirical criticism of the large sums that Germany allocates to support Ukraine is not unusual for “Alternative to Germany”. In the past year and a half, the right-wing populist party has regularly demonstrated its pro-Russian views. The party’s headquarters responded to DV’s inquiry that “Alternative for Germany” was not the author of the video in question and learned about its existence from the media.

Where does the video start to be distributed?

Since Wednesday, the one-minute video has been shared by many pro-Kremlin channels, but its creators remain unclear. It “appeared on the Internet”, it says the Russian-language channel of RT, which is part of the Russian state media apparatus, at 12:32 in Telegram. Until then, the video had only been shared sporadically, writes the German site t-online. Russian media critical of the government said its source was a political commentator affiliated with RT.

The video was also published by journalist Armen Gasparian, who Russian Wikipedia claims heads a department at RT, but who himself lists the RIA Novosti news agency as his employer. Gasparian has been sanctioned by the EU for spreading pro-Russian propaganda, the t-online site recalls. He posted the video at 9:36 a.m., but it’s apparently not his first appearance. Journalist Max Bernhardt of “Correctiv” came across an earlier posting made by the former head of the space agency “Roscosmos” Dmitry Rogozin from 8.58.

Russian actors?

The information in the clip that Germany has already provided over 22 billion euros in aid to Ukraine, is true. This can also be checked on the federal government website. DV’s fact-checking team found no compelling evidence as to who was behind the video. Most image and video inspection tools didn’t show anything specific. One of the results showed that the houses in the opening frame, which had “Germany 2023” written on them, were probably from a photo taken in 2017.

Historian and propaganda expert Christian Hardinghaus says he is “99% certain” that this video is not the work of the Alternative for Germany. According to him, even the people in the video are not German. Hardinghouse appears to be right. According to a number of media outlets, the people in the video are actually Russian actors.

Journalist Mark Krotov from Radio Svoboda still managed to identify the participants in the video, reports t-online. They are all Russian actors, although not too famous. The father in the video is Russian actor Valentin Vorobyov, who has already appeared in a propaganda video distributed by RT at Christmas 2022.

Typical of Russian propaganda

Lea Frewirth from the Center for Monitoring, Analysis and Strategy explains to DV: “The video is in sync with two very typical Russian propaganda narratives. First – the claim that Ukraine is ruled by Nazis. And secondly, that Germany’s support for Ukraine endangers the Germans themselves.”

Aimed at a German audience, the video aims to weaken solidarity with Ukraine. However, the researcher believes that it is more intended for a Russian audience. And the presentation of “Alternative for Germany” as a potential author of the video is an attempt to show that there are also many pro-Russian voices in Germany – that is, that not everyone supports Ukraine.

Frewirth draws attention to other forgeries with a similar message – for example, the appearance of a fake cover photo from the German magazine “Titanic” at the end of last year, which depicted Zelensky eating … banknotes. Then many suspected that precisely Russia is behind this disinformation campaign.

2023-07-28 12:56:34
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