How Putin’s propaganda slingers use Sahra Wagenknecht

The video shows Sahra Wagenknecht, 55, in a classic pose. Her back is straight, her eye shadow is subtle, her hair is in place. The view through the windows of her house falls on fruit trees in a soft green. Two glass pendants rock on the ears of the founder and head of the “Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht” (BSW).

Wagenknecht criticizes Baerbock in the film

Film from May 27, 2024, 6:21 p.m. Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock was once again with American President Selenskyi, Wagenknecht begins her video comment and then falls into a friendly tone, as if she were sitting on the WDR “Show with the Mouse”: Baerbock gave Selenskyi “a lot of money”. “many more weapons” promised.

The German population, on the other hand, is suffering from the budget gaps. “But for weapons, for this war, there still seems to be money available.” Wagenknecht chides, “Probably,” says Wagenknecht, “Mrs. Baerbock doesn’t read any newspapers!”

Wagenknecht videos are used for Russian campaigns

Cut. A small detail disturbs the optics: At the top left of the video there is an emblem that will no longer be visible in Germany following a ban by the European Union (EU) in spring 2022.

There are four letters: RT DE – they stand for the abbreviation of the German-language program of the Russian state foreign broadcaster RT, formerly Russia Today. It is unclear who inserted the emblem in the video. It’s obviously part of a Russian campaign using Wagenknecht videos.

EU revoked “Russia Today” license

The broadcasts from the Moscow media empire, which has massively supported Sahra Wagenknecht for more than two years, “contribute significantly to fueling Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine and destabilizing neighboring countries.”

This is how the Council of the EU justified its decision on March 2, 2022 to revoke RT’s broadcasting license for almost all EU countries including Germany.

“Despite this ban,” says the head of a state office for the protection of the constitution in a background conversation, “Moscow is increasingly building Sahra Wagenknecht into the tip of the spear against German democracy.”

From the Kremlin’s perspective, Wagenknecht and her BSW party are much more impressive than the AfD. Because the newly founded BSW not only supports Russia’s narrative in the Ukraine war, but will soon take government responsibility in Germany as a coalition partner.

Wagenknecht videos used for disinformation against the West

The Kremlin likes the tough approach and is apparently taking advantage of Wagenknecht. In a video in which Wagenknecht castigates the delivery of Leopard tanks to Ukraine, the nationalist rallying cry “Germany, awake!” was inserted.

On April 2, 2024, at 11:45 a.m., Wagenknecht will attack Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD). At the start, in the Kremlin version of the video, a poster with the bright imprint “Scholz is lying!” is shown behind the party founder.

By authorizing the stationing of American medium-range missiles, Wagenknecht lectured, Scholz was harming “our beautiful Germany” and its citizens – they were exposed to a significantly greater risk of war. At the end of her 8:08 minute long angry speech, Wagenknecht then adds again: “Our forgetful Chancellor, whose memory seems to have a lot of problems, is lying!”

How can it be that Wagenknecht’s video comments are apparently being used by Russia’s propaganda broadcaster for disinformation against Western governments?

Even in the Soviet Union, disinformation was the supreme discipline

When the Soviet Bolsheviks, Chekists and Communists and their dummies in the GDR master a discipline almost perfectly, then disinformation dies.

Secret service legends such as KGB General Sergei Kondrashov and East Berlin’s Stasi Colonel Rolf Wagenbreth employed hundreds of specialists to carry out sophisticated operations to mislead the population in the Federal Republic.

Sahra Wagenknecht may be a small cog in the engine of global Russian hybrid warfare.

Espionage expert on Wagenknecht’s past

FOCUS online asked two espionage experts from the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) and the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) to what extent the chairman of the new BSW party could be used for Kremlin propaganda.

Both secret service officials referred to Wagenknecht’s ideological basis: they grew up in the authoritarian socialism of the GDR and joined the SED party in the early summer of 1989. All her life she refused to classify the GDR as an unjust state.

After the fall of the Wall, Wagenknecht became involved in the anti-capitalist left and in particular in the Communist Platform, which was monitored by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

Political attack videos easy to obtain

Videos for attacks on political opponents are apparently easy to obtain in the Wagenknecht case.

The Russian spies fished out all of the BSW boss’s film and audio documents from the global network. According to the knowledge of the security authorities, the next stop is the Russian propaganda channel RT/Russia Today, which had a large editorial team and studio in the Berlin district of Adlershof until it was banned in the EU – even Vladimir Putin was once a guest.

Here, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution knows, films and videos were edited, re-edited and their content was partly enhanced with artificial intelligence – and if necessary, probably falsified.

In the final production phase, the videos and audio interviews are uploaded to social media, most recently Instagram. For years, Russians have preferred to use the vk.com platform, which is controlled by Moscow’s domestic secret service FSB and has almost 100 million users worldwide and in dozens of languages.

Various channels contain dozens of videos of Sahra Wagenknecht, who repeatedly supports the Russian side in the Ukraine war.

Hybrid warfare as a successful concept for the Russians

The people behind the scenes are considered professionals. RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan, who describes herself as “Putin’s soldier” and months ago leaked the wiretapped phone call of four German generals about Taurus cruise missiles to the world, swears by hybrid warfare.

Alex Garashchenko, general of the KGB’s successor service, the FSB, who had the dissident Selimkhan Changoshwilli murdered in Berlin’s Kleiner Tiergarten in August 2019, is one of the top commanders for Moscow’s hybrid warfare.

Fake news from Moscow

The US Federal Police FBI recently described Garashchenko, Simonyan and their accomplices as “malicious actors” who will now be stripped of the cover for their covert influence activities. Scandal reports about Trump’s opponent Kamala Harris, who is said to have started running away after a crash that was her fault, were exposed as fake news from the Moscow counterfeit workshop.

The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution is preparing for the fact that Germany could be flooded with masses of disinformation material during the 2025 federal election campaign. “Chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz will certainly be massively encouraged,” estimates a member of the Parliamentary Control Committee (PKGr), which oversees the German intelligence services.

Confidential material that was captured in several hacker attacks on the Reichstag and several parliamentary offices in recent years could in the near future be used for defamatory or blackmail campaigns, says a high-ranking official at the Federal Ministry of the Interior.

Overall, propaganda and disinformation from Russian authorities had increased since the start of the Ukraine war, the BfV said.

Sahra Wagenknecht remains silent about the allegations

FOCUS online wanted to know (on August 31, 2024) in a detailed written request from Sahra Wagenknecht whether she was informed that her videos were being used for the Kremlin’s hybrid warfare.

The editorial team also wanted to find out from Wagenknecht whether they wanted to take legal action against the use of their person for Russian secret service operations. Both inquiries from FOCUS online remained unanswered.