With Germany's Election Around The Corner, What's Putin's Play?
Otto Fricke says he knew what he was getting himself into.
When he decided to run for a seat in Germany's parliament, Fricke says he knew that following the elections in the U.S., the Netherlands and France, the next big target for Russian election interference could be his own national election.
"No one in Germany, if you ask the question, 'do you think that Russia is trying to intervene with the German election in a certain way' would say no," said Fricke, who also served in the legislature from 2002-13. "The only question is how are they going to do it."
Strangely, to the surprise of democracy-watchers everywhere, the answer has been: lightly.
There's evidence that Russian intelligence officers have been up to some of, spreading disinformation and other strategies — but nothing has happened on the scale of other elections elsewhere, German politicians and other experts say.
