Published 13:06 May 2, 2016

Updated 13:13 May 2, 2016

Je t’aime moi non plus: new chill between Germany and Russia

By Dan Alexe
Contributing Editor, New Europe

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German and other European security officials accuse Russian media of launching what they call an “information war” against Germany. By twisting the truth in reports on Germany’s migrant crisis, the officials told Reuters, Russia hopes to fuel popular anger, weaken voters’ trust in leaders such as Chancellor Angela Merkel, and feed divisions in the European Union so that it drops sanctions against Moscow.
Russian officials deny their country is mounting a campaign against Germany. “These accusations are atrocious,” one Russian official told Reuters, pretending that on the contrary Moscow is the victim of an “indiscriminate information war” being waged from Germany.
Relations between the two countries are now at their lowest. Russia is using propaganda and made-up stories in order to discredit the West and its institutions.
Thus, in January, the Russian media fabricated a story about the alleged rape case of a 13-year-old German-Russian girl. She told police she had been kidnapped in Berlin by Muslim immigrants, who raped her while she was held for 30 hours. The story was widely spread by the Russian media and provoked a huge wave of indignation.
The story triggered widespread outrage in Russia after the country’s most watched television network, state-run Channel One, gave the rape allegation prominent place in a January 16 report by its Berlin correspondent, Ivan Blagoy.
Blagoy’s report quoted the girl’s relatives as saying that police had refused to launch criminal proceedings in an attempt to cover up the case, and had pressured the girl to say the sex was consensual.
Russian immigrant communities in Berlin and other German cities organized rallies to voice their anger. On January 23, some 700 people protested in front of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office, holding banners that read “Our children are in danger” and “Today my child, tomorrow yours.”
The flagrant deceit of the so-called “Lisa affair” shocked the German public. Russia had employed similar disinformation tactics in the war against Ukraine, but never in Germany. The German government accused the Russian media of “biased reporting” in the particular case of the girl, or on events such as the Ukraine crisis and reports on Russia’s neighbouring states and an alleged rape case involving a German-Russian girl.

The Berlin public prosecutor’s office later said a medical examination showed she had not been raped.
The case stirred concern among senior German officials that Russia was trying to erode public trust in Merkel using immigration, an issue that has already cost her support and caused tensions in the European Union.
At a meeting in Moscow on March 23, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov irritated his German counterpart by raising again the case of the girl.
Germany’s Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier was upset when Lavrov raised the issue again. “I can only hope that such incidents and difficulties, as we had in that case, aren’t repeated,” he told Reuters afterwards.
German and European officials say Russia’s aim is two-fold: To exaggerate the problems the migrant crisis is causing Germany and to push Germany to relax its backing for European sanctions on Russia over Moscow’s interference in Ukraine. While EU governments last month extended asset freezes and travel bans on Russians and Russian companies, there is less consensus on whether to prolong more far-reaching sanctions on Russia’s banking, defence and energy sectors from July.
Both sides agree on one point: relations between the two countries are at their lowest point since the early days of the Cold War. Russia’s campaign against Europe uses “trolls” who produce online hate speech and sow discord and doubt about news events. There are dozens of examples of Russian reporting on the migrant crisis that it says are clear cases of deliberate disinformation.
Moscow rejects the idea of any coordinated campaign. One Russian official told Reuters there was a German media campaign to paint Russia in a bad light and “demonize” it.
The Kremlin is also using far-right parties in Europe to sow discord among the EU countries. Thus Russia is using the Front National, the third largest political force in France, and other anti-EU parties as a vehicle to lobby its political interests in Europe. Marine Le Pen, whose party came first in European elections in May 2014 with 25 % of votes and obtained even more in the recent French local elections, has made no secret of her sympathy for Russian President Vladimir Putin. She also obtained a loan from a Russian bank.
One other example of ties with Moscow is the UK Independence Party, commonly known as UKIP, whose leader Nigel Farage’s appears very frequently on state-owned Russia Today and who is very criticised for his expression of open admiration for Vladimir Putin.

Also, the Italian Northern League’s leader, Matteo Salvini calls the euro a “criminal currency” and wants to demolish the Brussels consensus that has dominated European politics since the end of World War Two. Matteo Salvini is also an open admirer of Vladimir Putin and a friend of Marine Le Pen.Sigmar Gabriel, an SDP member and Germany’s Economy Minister, said recently that the EU should try to lift sanctions on Russia by this summer. Before the EU’s Ukraine-related sanctions, Russia accounted for 4% of German trade; that has fallen to 2.4%.Merkel, though, has refused to ease the sanctions, insisting that Russia first needs to comply with an agreement to enforce a ceasefire, pull back heavy weapons, exchange prisoners, and hold internationally monitored local elections in eastern Ukraine. (with Reuters, AP)