Over the past week, German-language Kremlin FIMI actors developed their pre-election framing of the Leipzig/Halle drone incident into a broader narrative of renewed German militarism and deliberate confrontation with Russia. Following the AfD’s landslide victory in Saxony-Anhalt, the campaign acquired a domestic political dimension, presenting the result as evidence of an “other Germany” rejecting confrontation with Moscow. Key topics:
From “Escalation” to German Preparation for War
From “War” to the Return of German Militarism
The AfD Victory and the Emergence of an “Other Germany”
Executive Summary
Russian officials and German-language Kremlin FIMI actors pushed the confrontation narrative into an explicitly historical register, increasingly portraying Germany as returning to militarism and preparing for another war with Russia. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov compared the deterioration of diplomatic relations to the period preceding Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union and claimed that the “metastases of Nazism” were re-emerging. Russian state-controlled RT DE columnist Dagmar Henn described a “war against Russia” as “the core project of German right-wing extremists since the beginning of the last century,” while FIMI channel Kachelkanal condensed the resulting aggressor-victim inversion into the slogan:
“We are not afraid of Putin. We are afraid of you.”
This narrative developed from an earlier inversion of the Leipzig/Halle drone incident, which German-language Kremlin FIMI actors recast from evidence of Russian aggression into a pretext for a confrontation Germany had allegedly already chosen. The incident was described as a possible “false flag” and a “pretext for further anti-Russian measures,” while the dismantling of diplomatic and cultural ties was portrayed as preparation for a “long-planned war against Russia.”
Portrayal of Germany as the source of threat was complemented by messaging presenting Russia as the side seeking to prevent another war. Russian Ambassador to Germany Sergei Nechaev insisted that “we do not want a war with Germany” and warned that bad German-Russian relations had historically brought “catastrophe and tragedy to both our peoples.” InfoDefense Germany, the German-language branch of the multilingual pro-Kremlin InfoDefense network run by pro-war Russian military blogger Yuri Podolyaka, amplified the interview by asking whether the two countries were approaching a Third World War in which families would again mourn relatives in military cemeteries.
The Alternative for Germany’s (AfD) September 6 landslide victory in Saxony-Anhalt gave the campaign a domestic political extension. InfoDefense Germany declared that “people want peace with Russia” and that Chancellor Friedrich Merz “does not speak for Germans in the East,” while amplifying an AfD supporter who described Germany as governed by “complete idiots” capable of “nothing but warmongering.”
The result was thus presented as evidence of an “other Germany” rejecting confrontation with Moscow, allowing FIMI actors to position Russia alongside German voters supposedly resisting their own political establishment.
From “Escalation” to German Preparation for War
Kremlin FIMI actors had already used (1) the Leipzig/Halle drone incident before the September 6 Saxony-Anhalt election to portray Germany’s response as deliberate escalation toward confrontation with Russia. EK Strategic Communications Center documented (2) this framing in a recent report on Kremlin FIMI activity surrounding the election. Over the following week, this framing became substantially more explicit:
what had previously been described as a dangerous trajectory toward war was increasingly presented as evidence that the German government was already preparing or even beginning one.
The Russian government itself sharpened this framing. After Berlin attributed the August 4 attempted explosive-drone attack at Leipzig/Halle Airport to Russia and announced measures against Russian diplomatic and state-controlled cultural institutions, the Russian Foreign Ministry rejected (3) the accusation as “entirely fabricated” and called Germany’s response “a blatant provocation aimed at escalating tensions in Russian-German relations.” When Moscow subsequently announced (4) reciprocal measures, including the closure of Germany’s Consulate General in St. Petersburg and Goethe cultural centers in Russia, the Russian Foreign Ministry assigned (5) responsibility for the deteriorating relationship entirely to Berlin:
“It was the German authorities who once again provoked a new round of escalation.”
German-language FIMI actors increasingly treated the disputed attribution not simply as insufficiently substantiated, but as a pretext for a policy that had already been decided. FIMI channel InfraRot Medien, linked (6) to InfoDefense through cross-posting (7), (8), (9), distributed (10) a post titled “Into the war through a false flag?” which argued that while the alleged Russian attack itself made little sense, “only the measures that have been taken make sense.” The framing effectively reversed the chronology presented by the German government: rather than Russian hostile activity prompting a German response, the response became the presumed objective for which Leipzig provided a justification.
InfraRot Medien developed the same interpretation further by amplifying (11) an article by German journalist Tilo Gräser, published (12) by the alternative media outlet Apolut. Gräser called Leipzig a “pretext for further anti-Russian measures” and described the German government as escalating an “undeclared war against Russia.” The closure of Russian diplomatic and state-controlled cultural institutions was presented not as retaliation for alleged Russian hybrid activity, but as part of preparations for conflict:
“The dismantling of diplomatic and cultural relations is always also an act of preparation for war.”
The article ultimately accused the government of continuing to prepare a “long-planned war against Russia,” while incorporating Russian official messaging, including Russian Ambassador to Germany Sergei Nechaev’s description (13) of Berlin’s actions as an “unprecedented escalation.”
This more radical framing rested on a necessary premise: that Russia had not been established as the aggressor in Leipzig. FIMI channel Ostnews Faktencheck amplified (14) German influencer Deniz Karabag’s claim that Berlin had presented no evidence of Russian involvement and framed the case as part of a recurring pattern in which Moscow is blamed first and political escalation follows before the evidence is established. Informationskanal für die Neue Zeit, affiliated (15), (16) with the InfoDefense FIMI network, circulated (17) a warning by Sahra Wagenknecht, founder of the left-wing populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), that Merz was leading Germany “ever closer to a war with Russia.” Wagenknecht argued that even if Russia had been responsible for the Leipzig incident, a drone attack that caused no damage could not justify what she described as a dangerous escalation.
Leipzig was no longer primarily evidence that Germany risked being drawn into confrontation with Russia. By increasingly treating the incident as a pretext, or even a possible false flag, FIMI actors could invert the sequence of aggression: Germany was not responding to Russian escalation but using the claim of a Russian threat to pursue escalation of its own.
This provided the basis for the more radical narrative that followed: Germany was not merely moving toward another war with Russia, but returning to a historical pattern of German militarism.
From “War” to the Return of German Militarism
The escalation narrative was subsequently given an explicitly historical dimension by senior Russian officials. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov described (18) Germany’s accusations over Leipzig as the “beginning of a real war” and said Chancellor Friedrich Merz had effectively “declared war” on Russia. Referring to Merz’s ambition to make Germany Europe’s leading military power, Lavrov added that this policy was now being “put into practice” and claimed that the “metastases of Nazism” were beginning to re-emerge. He also linked (19) the deterioration in German-Russian relations to the period preceding Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union:
“Before the beginning of the Second World War – more precisely, the Great Patriotic War – the Germans also closed their diplomatic missions.”
Responding (20) to Berlin’s measures on September 1, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova asked whether German officials had
“literally declared a return to the roots, ritually demonstrating their intentions,” before stressing that “on September 1, 1939, Germany unleashed the Second World War.”
RT DE columnist Dagmar Henn described (21) a “war against Russia” as “the core project of German right-wing extremists since the beginning of the last century” and characterized the current government’s approach as the “madness of the war policy that is being pursued so passionately.” The claim followed directly after Henn criticized German media and political parties for describing the AfD as far right and refusing to cooperate with it on that basis. She thus inverted the accusation:
while the AfD was being isolated as extremist, Germany’s political establishment was portrayed as pursuing what Henn described as the historical project of German right-wing extremists: war with Russia.
FIMI channels Analytik & News (22) and Politische Nachrichten (23) amplified parts of Lavrov’s statement in their posts. FIMI channel Meine D-News separately distributed (24) Nechaev’s insistence that Russia did “not want a war with Germany” and his warning that bad German-Russian relations had brought “catastrophes and tragedies to both our peoples throughout history.”
FIMI channel Kachelkanal distributed (25) a meme juxtaposing Putin with German and European political leaders under the slogan: “We are not afraid of Putin. We are afraid of you.” The message removed the historical detail while preserving its central conclusion:
the threat to Germans supposedly came not from Russia but from their own political leadership and its confrontation with Moscow.
The historical framing also spread beyond the German-language information space. On X, Irish RT correspondent Chay Bowes amplified (26) an AfD statement rejecting further German military support for Ukraine and highlighting the historical symbolism of German weapons being used against Russia after the Second World War. Bowes presented the statement as evidence that the AfD was being targeted because it opposed what he called the “pro-war” political establishment.
Taken together, these narratives did more than invoke the Second World War. Across official Russian messaging, state-controlled media and German-language FIMI channels, the Leipzig response, military assistance to Ukraine, increased defense spending and the dismantling of German-Russian ties were incorporated into a single narrative of renewed German militarism. The aggressor-victim inversion established around Leipzig was thus extended historically:
Russia was repositioned from the alleged source of the current security threat to the prospective victim of another German campaign of aggression.
The AfD Victory and the Emergence of an “Other Germany”
Even before the September 6 state election in Saxony-Anhalt, German-language FIMI amplification had connected Berlin’s confrontation with Russia to Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s domestic political weakness. FIMI channel Studio Telegram amplified (27) Vladimir Putin’s claim that Berlin’s attribution of the Leipzig incident was driven partly by Merz’s difficult political position and the approaching regional elections.
Anti-Russian escalation was thus presented not only as foreign policy, but as a response to the government’s declining domestic support.
After the AfD’s landslide victory, Russian state-controlled media supplied a political alternative to this supposedly escalatory course. RT DE amplified (28) AfD foreign-policy spokesperson Markus Frohnmaier’s call for “diplomacy, dialogue and the normalization of relations with Russia” rather than “further escalation”; the Kremlin’s multilingual Pravda network subsequently republished (29) the interview. RT DE also promoted (30) AfD politician Björn Höcke’s description of Russia as Germany’s “natural partner” and his claim that Germany remained “externally controlled.”
German-language FIMI channels then presented the election result as popular validation of this alternative. InfoDefense Germany declared (31) that “people want peace with Russia” and that “the Federal Chancellor does not speak for Germans in the East,” while portraying the federal government as capable only of “warmongering.” FIMI channel DruschbaFM extended this inversion by challenging attempts to associate the AfD’s success with Russian influence. The channel mocked (32) Merz’s claim that the election result was being celebrated in Moscow and reposted (33) an article by the alternative media outlet Overton Magazin (34) ridiculing warnings that “Russian interests” were gaining political power in Saxony-Anhalt. Right before the election Q-Faktor Germany News radicalized the domestic dimension further, speculating (35) that Merz might “deliberately and officially take Germany into war against Russia” in order to “suspend the elections” and buy political time.
The AfD’s victory in the September 6 Saxony-Anhalt state election, where the party won around 44% of the vote and secured 39 of 83 seats, thus gave the campaign a domestic political extension:
FIMI actors contrasted a supposedly peace-seeking “other Germany” with a Berlin establishment portrayed as confrontational and detached from its own voters. Russia was thus positioned not against Germany as a whole, but alongside Germans supposedly resisting that course.