THE FACTS: There is no evidence that Kenya and Germany signed an agreement allowing 1.9 million migrants from Kenya to enter Germany to address labor shortages. The false narrative misrepresents a bilateral labor agreement signed in September 2024 between German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Kenyan President William Ruto.

The agreement allows skilled workers from Kenya to work in Germany, but it does not specify a number or quota. According to German and Kenyan officials, applicants must meet strict criteria under Germany’s Skilled Immigration Act, and no number is set for workers to enter. The claim appears to have originated from a Dec. 17, 2024, article on the Kenyan site Tuko.co.ke, and is linked to Russian disinformation efforts, according to reports from The Gnida Project and Microsoft’s tracking of what it calls the Russian Storm-1516 disinformation operation. 

The false claim spread quickly across social media platforms, including X, Facebook, and Telegram, garnering millions of views, and was further advanced by pro-Kremlin websites such as VTForeignPolicy.com. The story gained traction in several languages, including English, French, German, and Chinese.

(NewsGuard clients can read the full Misinformation Fingerprint and access other false claims here.)

By McKenzie Sadeghi

THE FACTS: A baseless claim is circulating online that Robert Habeck, Germany’s Green Party chancellor candidate, sexually abused a woman named Milina Graz. The narrative, part of a Russian disinformation campaign, originated from a Dec. 5, 2024, article on a site masquerading as a German news outlet called “Echo der Zeit.” The article included a video featuring a woman claiming that Habeck assaulted her in 2017 when he was Schleswig-Holstein’s environment minister. 

However, the video is an AI-generated creation, manipulated apparently using face-swap technology, according to the AI detection tool TrueMedia and the Austrian fact-checking site Mimikama. The woman in the video seemingly resembles Russian gymnast Julia Lipnitskaja, but it appears that face swap technology was used to superimpose the face and the audio of a fabricated persona onto footage of Lipnitskaja. The video contains multiple signs of inauthenticity, including unnatural and inconsistent movements, disproportionate facial features, and the supposedly German woman’s Russian accent. 

“Echo der Zeit” was anonymously registered as a website on Nov. 19, 2024, and is part of the larger Russian influence operation involving Dougan, Storm-1516, which frequently launches disinformation campaigns using fabricated first-person testimonies. 

(NewsGuard clients can read the full Misinformation Fingerprint and access other false claims here.)

By McKenzie Sadeghi

THE FACTS: Contrary to claims made by the Russian-controlled Foundation to Battle Injustice, there is no evidence that the German government plans to silence far-right figures through media smear campaigns, physical assaults, assassinations, and other attacks. The narrative, presented in a baseless report, alleges that the German government seeks to eliminate far-right participation in the February 2025 federal elections, including a plot to murder Björn Höcke, the AfD Alternative for Germany leader in the central German state of Thuringia, and the arrest and murder of Lutz Bachmann, the leader of anti-Islam organization Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West (PEGIDA). 

The so-called investigation said that the German government plans to “completely cleanse the ‘German political landscape’ of the right and far-right by the summer of 2025 to avoid the participation of the most popular right-wing politicians in the federal elections scheduled for next fall.” The report relies entirely on the testimony of two unnamed sources — identified only as an ex-lawmaker and an investigative journalist — who provided no verifiable evidence. 

(NewsGuard clients can read the full Misinformation Fingerprint and access other false claims here.)

By Leonie Pfaller

THE FACTS: Contrary to social media claims, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz does not own a 90 million euro ($94.6 million) villa in Los Angeles that burned in the 2025 California fires. The false claim first appeared on TikTok on Jan.10, 2025, and was based on misrepresented footage of two unrelated buildings: the Los Angeles Police Academy and a Beverly Hills villa, neither of which belong to Scholz. 

Moreover, both buildings are outside the areas affected by the fires, and there is no evidence that either was damaged. Scholz’s spokesperson has stated that Scholz does not own any real estate in California or elsewhere.

(NewsGuard clients can read the full Misinformation Fingerprint and access other false claims here.)

By Elena Bernard

THE FACTS: Contrary to claims circulating online, former European Commissioner Thierry Breton did not claim that the European Union canceled Romania’s presidential election or could do the same in Germany if the far-right AfD wins. The false claim, which first appeared on X on Jan. 9, 2025, and was spread by Elon Musk and anti-EU figures, misrepresents Breton’s interview on French Radio, In fact, Romania’s Constitutional Court — not the EU — annulled the first round of its election due to alleged Russian interference in favor of pro-Kremlin candidate Calin Georgescu. 

The EU has no authority to cancel national elections. The decisions are the responsibility of individual member states, a European Commission spokesperson confirmed. During the interview, Breton referred to the EU’s work fighting online disinformation and election interference, and said: “For now, let’s keep our cool and enforce our laws in Europe when they risk being circumvented, or when they may, if we don’t enforce them, lead to interference. We did it in Romania, and of course, if necessary, we’ll have to do it in Germany.” 

At no point in the interview did Breton say that the EU had canceled the 2024 Romanian election. Breton denied the claim in a Jan. 11, 2025, response to an X post by Elon Musk that amplified the claim.“No @elonmusk: the EU has NO mechanism to nullify any election anywhere in EU,” Breton said in an English-language X post.

(NewsGuard clients can read the full Misinformation Fingerprint and access other false claims here.)

By Natalie Huet