Maria Zakharova: There were numerous reports saying that Spiegel and Süddeutsche Zeitung received a video recording of someone posing as a niece of a Russian oligarch with an Austrian politician

There were numerous reports saying that Spiegel and Süddeutsche Zeitung received a video recording of someone posing as a niece of a Russian oligarch with an Austrian politician. This video was acquired from a company that bought the recording for a reported amount of 600,000 euros. Finally, the whole story turned out to be a planned provocation featuring a Bosnian student who was hired for a generous sum of money. Surely, the German journalists behind this fake story have to explain themselves, to say the least. How come they were the ones who got their hands on this piece of fake information that they put in the spotlight, having added more misinformation?

Considering that the German publications presented information on Russia’s involvement in a flatly unambiguous manner, if not as a fact (but now it turns out that this was a set-up, and the German journalists were aware of this), we will look into this incident once again in the light of the new reports and will inform the OSCE and other relevant bodies about the information operation carried out by the German media.

Of course, all speculation that the materials available to these journalists should be made public become irrelevant considering how fiercely German journalists fought against fake news and election meddling.

That said, the main question remains unanswered: Who interfered in Austrian politics in such a brutal manner by relying on the would-be independent German press?