Until 2014, Germany was a comparatively hospitable environment for Russian influence. The prevailing political strategy was rapprochement through economic cooperation and cultural exchange. German business wanted Russian energy and access to the Russian market. Public interest in Russian culture remained strong, at times shading into open Russophilia and reinforced by a lingering sense of historical guilt for Nazi Germany’s crimes against the peoples of the Soviet Union. A multimillion-strong Russian-speaking diaspora, a dense network of “friendship societies,” and virtually unrestricted circulation of Russian media content together created favorable conditions for Moscow’s soft power.
After the annexation of Crimea and the start of the war in Donbas, Berlin began to narrow that space. It did not, however, abandon the basic architecture of the relationship. The rules of the game for Russian soft power changed in earnest only after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
How did Moscow lose its old levers—and what instruments does it still have for promoting its narratives in German public life?
Politics
In 2022 Germany executed its sharpest foreign-policy turn since reunification and the end of the Cold War. Berlin condemned the aggression, began supplying Ukraine with weapons, and publicly acknowledged the collapse of “Change through Trade” and the “Partnership for Modernization”—the twin foundations of German-Russian relations for three decades.
Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a former foreign minister, spoke bluntly of the failure of Germany’s eastern policy after 2014: the underestimation of Vladimir Putin’s imperial ambitions, the misreading of the political risks attached to joint energy projects, and Germany’s own miscalculations. Serving and former politicians from the established parties who had once amplified pro-Russian talking points all but vanished from public view. Former chancellor Gerhard Schröder faced a wave of criticism, including from within his own party, and came close to expulsion from the SPD. Even unofficial contacts by retired politicians—such as those of former SPD chairman Matthias Platzeck—now provoke outrage and accusations of “egoism and irresponsibility.” The government ostentatiously distances itself from such meetings.
For Berlin, Russia is no longer a difficult partner. It is an adversary. Officials no longer speak of a hypothetical threat; they speak of a hybrid war already under way. Representatives of the Bundeswehr and the intelligence services openly warn that armed aggression against Germany is conceivable in the foreseeable future. That diagnosis received a fresh confirmation in the summer of 2026. In early August an attempted sabotage was carried out against a Ukrainian An-124 cargo aircraft at Leipzig/Halle Airport. Berlin formally attributed the attack to Russia and responded by announcing the closure of the Russian consulate general in Bonn and the Russian House in Berlin, along with additional sanctions and visa measures.
Under these conditions, any formal—let alone informal—contact with Russia became politically toxic for the CDU, CSU, SPD, Greens and FDP. An entire set of channels to the German political class disappeared: the inter-parliamentary group, twin-city programs, joint conferences, receptions at the Russian embassy in Berlin. The Petersburg Dialogue ceased to function.
The distancing from the Kremlin even reached Die Linke, long sympathetic to Russia. Not long ago, then-Bundestag deputy and PACE member Andrej Hunko could travel to occupied Donbas. The last official Linke visit to Moscow dates to February 2022. AfD deputies at various levels still travel to Russia, but under a party-board decision they must obtain permission; in the most high-profile cases, offenders have been stripped of their faction membership.
Russia has lost its principal mechanisms of direct influence over German politicians. Beyond the geopolitical shift, two domestic developments mattered. First, the snap Bundestag election of 2025: many deputies regarded as close to Russia lost their seats, either in single-member districts or by failing to secure viable list positions. Even the AfD lists were “cleaned.” Second, Die Linke split. Sahra Wagenknecht’s supporters formed the BSW (Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht), which failed to enter parliament.
BSW and AfD politicians still maintain contacts with Russia. In June 2026 two BSW members of the European Parliament visited Moscow, and an AfD delegation led by the faction’s foreign-policy spokesman, Markus Frohnmaier, attended the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. But politicians who in one form or another sympathize with Russia occupy only a thin slice of the spectrum, on its far-right and far-left edges. For many of them, cooperation with the Russian side is less a bid for rapprochement with Putin’s regime than a tactical signal inside Germany and a demonstrative gesture against domestic opponents. For conservatives, center-left politicians and liberals, any attempt to “restore dialogue with Russia” is career-threatening: it invites public censure and lasting political damage.
The economy
Direct deliveries of Russian energy to Germany ended in early 2023. Half a century of energy dependence—first on the Soviet Union, then on Russia—was over. Most large German companies left the Russian market. Those that remain are, with rare exceptions, either far smaller than the firms that departed or have wound down core operations and kept only activities exempt from sanctions on humanitarian grounds. By 2024, direct German imports from Russia had fallen 95 percent from 2021 levels: from € 33.1 billion to € 1.8 billion.
Economic ties are not only contracts and profits. The Kremlin has largely lost the ability to influence the German economy both directly—through energy and export markets—and indirectly. Major lobbying bodies such as the Eastern Committee of German Economy and the German-Russian Chamber of Commerce had to abandon the formula “business comes first” and adapt to a new geopolitical reality. Key sectoral associations in energy, automotive manufacturing, chemicals and construction tore up or froze agreements with former Russian partners. Semi-official formats of cooperation disappeared. For a German senior executive, it is now politically uncomfortable not only to accept a job with a Russian corporation but even to attend a business forum or hold an off-the-record meeting.
Some 250 German companies still operate in Russia. All of them, to varying degrees, depend on the “political weather”: licenses and other permits, and the threat of expropriation as representatives of an “unfriendly state.” Germany continues to buy unsanctioned Russian metals, fertilizers, food and chemicals. But Moscow’s remaining channels of economic influence bear no comparison with those it possessed before 2022.
Media and society
Between 2022 and 2024 the EU, including Germany, banned the broadcasting of Russian state media—RT and Sputnik—as well as a number of television channels, including international versions such as RTR-Planeta and TVCI. Print outlets and websites of Izvestia, RIA Novosti and other media were also blocked. A few “daughter” editions of Russian newspapers, registered in Germany as independent limited-liability companies and thus escaping sanctions, have survived. They have lost staff and try to minimize “original” Russian content. Some online shops still sell subscriptions to Russian publications, including propaganda titles. Given the cost and limited delivery routes, these channels cannot be treated as a serious factor in German public opinion.
Virtually all of the more than one hundred twin-city and regional partnership programs between the two countries are now frozen; some have been formally terminated. Partnership agreements between universities, foundations and scholarly associations have likewise been severed. Within weeks of the full-scale invasion, Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the German Rectors’ Conference announced the early termination of all 970 joint projects with Russia. Russian scholars, with rare exceptions, are no longer guests at German conferences; their German counterparts refrain from traveling to Russia even when it is neither forbidden nor technically impossible. A March 2022 survey found that 86 of 105 German universities had projects with Russian partners. In the first weeks of the war, 78 broke off contacts (the remaining eight had not yet taken a position).
Youth exchange followed the same pattern. Joint programs once routinely funded from federal, state and European budgets had largely evaporated by the second half of 2022. The last major youth event in Russia attended by a German delegation was the Eurasia Global forum in Orenburg in June 2022. Visits by Germans to cultural events in Russia and Belarus are now private affairs.
Inside Germany, the more prominent conduits of Russian interests have gone quiet. Some pro-Russian organizations have dissolved; others confine themselves to events that raise no “political questions.” A number of well-known pro-Russian propagandists, including German citizens, have left the country.
Émigré media in Germany now hew to a pro-German line. Large portals registered in Germany that once circulated pro-Russian narratives have either vanished or shifted to neutral coverage of cultural life and commemorations of Soviet victims of the Second World War. Civic organizations working with people from the post-Soviet space have preferred to cancel leases in buildings linked to the Russian state. Some Russian-language outlets changed their names to avoid the wrong associations: Radio Russkiy Berlin became Voice of Berlin; the newspaper Russkaya Germaniya became Redaktion Germania.
All of this has created serious problems for Russia’s soft-power apparatus. Academic contacts once provided systematic informal access to Germany’s scholarly elite; twin-city programs offered a direct line to regional authorities; cultural channels supplied legal, regular travel.
The new strategy
Despite these constraints, Russia’s greatest remaining opportunities still lie in the information sphere. Direct contact with Germany’s political, economic, financial, cultural, academic and journalistic elites is either absent or tightly restricted. Since February 2022, some 400 Russian influence agents have been expelled. In these circumstances, an information-centric approach was, for the Kremlin, almost the only option. It relies on indirect channels: “mirror” sites of Russian state media, “alternative media,” radical groups on social networks, and accounts of “independent speakers” and influencers in multiple languages.
The priorities are clear. Ahead of the September 2026 state elections, as before last year’s Bundestag vote, social networks have been used to run disinformation campaigns against leading politicians of the mainstream parties (with the exception of the AfD and BSW). In parallel, clones of Western publications and online encyclopedias, including Wikipedia, have been created to host fabricated material. Longer-term work aims to erode trust in public institutions, representative democracy, the police and the courts; to deepen the east-west divide inside Germany; and to stoke public discontent. Calls circulate to revise German foreign policy: end support for Ukraine, distance the country from the EU and NATO, return to Russian energy, and put national self-interest first. The theme of a “migrant threat” is heavily worked. Such messages often appear in radical groups under “German” accounts and are formally unconnected to Russian original sources.
A separate information track is devoted to the falsification of history: truncated or decontextualized stories about Russia, Ukraine, Germany and Europe; the narrative of a “natural Russo-German friendship”; the “absence” of Ukrainian statehood; and the “decline of Europe” without cooperation with Russia. This material, too, is typically pushed from German accounts in far-left and far-right groups.
Finally, a distinct line of work seeks to construct an attractive image of contemporary Russia. Groups and pages on social media urge German citizens to move to Russia and former Russian citizens to return. For a German-speaking audience, the country is presented as one that is weathering sanctions, preserving political stability and offering a high quality of life. Posts showcase natural and architectural sights, including annexed Crimea, and describe Russian cities as “clean and high-tech,” with affordable prices for quality food.
Not all carriers of Kremlin-friendly narratives are directly tied to the Russian state or consciously support Moscow. In the far-right and far-left milieus there are actors who keep their distance from Russia. They selectively amplify only those messages that fit their own agenda, without citing the original source. Another group operates on the principle that the enemy of my enemy is my friend: they do not support Putin ideologically but see him as an anti-Western, anti-liberal force. Authors of pro-Russian content take this into account. The overarching aim is to raise the temperature of discontent and destabilize the situation inside the country.
The mechanics of distribution have also changed since 2022. While RT Deutsch still operated legally, its combined audience approached 1.5 million subscribers, not counting those who encountered its content on other platforms. Sputnik News Deutschland added another 327,000. Officially these outlets are blocked, but their product remains partly available through mirrors and accounts on Telegram and X, where German and European regulators have less reach. Consumption has nonetheless fallen, and the emphasis has shifted to other formats.
Among pro-Russian bloggers targeting a German audience there are almost no million-follower accounts. The exception is Sergey Filbert’s “Stimme Deutschlands” (780,000 YouTube subscribers). The rest are smaller: Alina Lipp (170,000 on TikTok), Thomas Röper’s Anzi-Spiegel (125,000 on Telegram), and modest communities such as “Moja Rossia” on Facebook (70,000). Their content still finds an audience because of a well-oiled distribution system and two reinforcing effects—authenticity and forbiddingness. Material published by private individuals and small groups creates the impression of an independent, first-person account and is therefore treated as more credible. The ban on Russian state media, in turn, heightens interest in sources that present themselves as banned, alternative, or unavailable to a mass audience.
The Russian leadership almost certainly has personal as well as political reasons for seeking to unsettle Germany. Nothing remains of the role of “Russia’s advocate in Europe” or of the strategic partnership of the Schröder and Merkel years. Under Olaf Scholz and now Friedrich Merz the country is a different place, and the old methods of Russian soft power have lost their relevance. In their place has come “sharp power”: targeted information campaigns, disinformation and manipulation.
Lacking any realistic prospect of transforming Germany’s political landscape—for example, by helping far-right forces into office—the Kremlin has settled on a strategy that combines campaigns to discredit democratic institutions and their representatives, the circulation of fabricated or tendentiously framed “news,” and the promotion of Russia as a stable, traditionalist and livable country.
