The pro‑Kremlin bot network Matryoshka has launched its first known campaign targeting Sweden, spreading videos on platform X disguised as content from well‑known international media outlets. These videos disseminate disinformation about alleged ties between Swedish politicians and pedophiles and financial criminals, potential election fraud, and the discrediting of opposition leaders. In addition to Swedish politicians, German politician Friedrich Merz has also become a target of the campaign, according to the project Antibot4Navalny, which reported this to The Insider.
One of the videos uses Der Spiegel‘s branding and claims that the Greek government has frozen financial operations of over 500 companies linked to Merz and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson. The video’s authors say these companies were involved in laundering proceeds from drug trafficking and financed a pedophile network known as «04/09». This likely refers to Operation «Fever»—a Polish police initiative during which, on April 9, 2025, more than 100 criminals were arrested in 12 countries. The Matryoshka video also mentions Radosław Kujawa, the former head of Poland’s Military Counterintelligence Service, who allegedly called these events «a victory for the Swedish and German opposition».
Disinformation campaign against Swedish and German politicians
Another video, shared with the caption «The ruling coalition of Sweden uses the same tactics against its political opponents as the German CDU party», uses the logo of Swedish broadcaster SVT. It claims that Landa, a lobbying organization linked to the CDU, spread disinformation to discredit Swedish opposition figures.
A further clip, mimicking Euronews content, alleges that German hackers breached Sweden’s BankID identification system to influence election results.
Elections in Sweden and Germany as the backdrop for the campaign
Elections to the Swedish Riksdag are scheduled for September 13, after which the newly elected parliament will choose a new prime minister. The ruling coalition, consisting of the Moderate Party, Christian Democrats, Liberals and Sweden Democrats, faces a left‑center alliance of Social Democrats, Left Party, Greens and Centre Party. Polls show the left‑center bloc leading the government by roughly 10 percentage points (53.9% to 43.9%), making a change in government very likely.
Several regional and local elections in Germany are also set for September. As previously reported by The Insider, Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) issued an official warning about a Russian disinformation campaign. The agency says that this month Matryoshka bots have been posting on X with the hashtag #TimeToDivideGermany, promoting the idea of re‑dividing Germany into East and West and describing such a split as a «historical necessity».
Source: The Insider
