German security services suspect Russia-linked group Storm-1516 created a fake video falsely claiming Chancellor Friedrich Merz planned to resign.
BERLIN: German security services believe that a Russia-linked group was behind a video recently spread online purporting to reveal plans for Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s resignation, a source told AFP Friday.
The video uses the branding of German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle and business daily Handelsblatt to claim that leaked documents from Merz’s conservative CDU party showed he was planning to resign next week in reaction to his poor poll ratings.
Both media organisations have said the video is a complete fabrication.
A security source told AFP that the “creator is probably Storm 1516”, an operation which has been linked to Russian military intelligence.
The same group is suspected of spreading disinformation during the last general election in February 2025, after which Merz took office at the head of a coalition with the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD).
According to France’s Viginum agency, which tracks foreign disinformation campaigns, Storm-1516 was behind at least 77 disinformation operations targeting Western countries between late 2023 and March 2025.
Germany’s domestic intelligence agency told AFP that the latest video “shows that the creators closely follow political developments in Germany and use these opportunistically”.
The video claimed that Merz was planning to stand aside in favour of Hendrik Wuest, the CDU state premier of North Rhein-Westphalia.
German media did in fact speculate about such a scenario earlier this year, and doubts about Merz’s future may resurface after state elections in eastern Germany next month in which the CDU is expected to perform poorly.
However the video contains an obvious mistake, referring to a “general federal election in September” when no such vote will take place.
The video uses a common disinformation tactic in which invented claims are falsely presented as reports from established media organisations.
It comes as German authorities point the finger at Moscow as being behind a campaign of disinformation and sabotage aimed at weakening Germany’s support for Ukraine.
Earlier this week a drone laden with “professional explosives” was found near a Ukrainian cargo plane at Germany’s Leipzig-Halle airport, though German officials have refrained from assigning blame for what they labelled a “a hybrid attack” scenario.
