German intelligence agencies: no smoking gun for Russian government disinformation against Germany

This is an almost breathtaking statement: According to a leaked report, German intelligence agencies have found no proof of a Russian government organized disinformation campaign against Germany.

This is the main finding of a year long investigation by both the domestic intelligence agency BfV and the foreign intel servive BND.

If you have not read anything by the blogster on the two German services, a post on the chief of the BfV will clearly show that the blogster has little to no respect for some of the actions of the gentleman.

The blogster has a habit of calling the BND "GetSmart" and identified the chief of that agency as the first real victim of the Snowden affair.

Based on this and some real life experiences in the past, it is not without a compliment that the blogster acknowledges a modicum of professional pride and competence by the agencies.

Many of the reader comments on the article in Zeit Online which we linked to at the beginning are far less charitable or conciliatory. One asked: So, should I collect all the articles based on dire warnings from the agencies and file them under "fake news"? It is true, that both agencies, or unnamed sources in them, have stoked the fear of a concerted Russian disinformation campaign in Germany.

Add to these the claims by NATO and the EU's East StratCom plus various foreign media reports, and you have an almost incessant barrage of  "the Russians are coming". The blogster has been repulsed by the awful "hybrid war babble" and by the wholesale attacks on social media as a purveyor of all evils.

So, kudos for saying this ain't so.

But since life is complicated, the absence of a Russian government effort does not prove there is no misinformation, no propaganda, no hacking.

Yet, at this point in time, clearing the Russian government is significant because some in the West have stated that any such interference amounts to a act or war. A statement that takes the belligerent outbursts of Western hawks to new levels.

So, while we can expect Russian reporting and maneuvering ahead of the German national elections later this year to be active and not necessarily "nice", the report by the two federal agencies may cool down some tempers just a little.