For hundreds of drivers in Berlin, it was a frustrating start to the day.
Their cars wouldn't start and strangely, stickers had been stuck on them.
"Be greener!" the stickers read, alongside a photo of the Greens candidate for German chancellor, Robert Habeck.
Construction foam had been pumped into the exhaust pipes of more than 270 cars, rendering them useless.
German newspaper Bild published a story titled: Climate Radicals Attack Cars With Construction Foam.
A torrent of anger flowed on social media against the Greens politician, his party and his supporters.
But the media and the public had been deliberately misled.
Police suspect climate activists weren't to blame.
Authorities believe what played out in several German states in December can be traced through the streets of Europe all the way to the Kremlin.
Earlier that day, three men with ID cards from Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Germany had been pulled over, according to the German news outlet Der Spiegel.
Their van was full of construction foam.
Authorities believe the trio had been recruited online and received thousands of euros from Russia in return for vandalising the cars.
It's suspected to have been a targeted attack, intended to stir hatred of the pro-Ukraine Greens party and hurt their election chances in the final weeks of the campaign.
But this isn't an isolated incident.
It's just one example of Russia recruiting low-budget saboteurs to carry out vandalism across Europe to stoke division in an attempt to destabilise the West, using an army of online bots to spread their messages.
Russia's Doppelganger in action
Ahead of the European elections and 2024 Paris Olympics, Russia was believed to be behind multiple incidents of hybrid warfare in France.
In late October, as the war in the Middle East was flaring, hundreds of Stars of David began appearing on buildings across Paris.
It was seemingly a shocking reminder of Europe's dark past, when Nazi graffiti was used to "out" Jewish people in their houses in the 1930s.
Six months later, a Holocaust memorial was defaced with red handprints, a highly charged symbol that had appeared recently at pro-Palestinian protests.
In both cases, there was immediate outcry from politicians, Jewish groups and the wider community, as the incidents threatened to further inflame deep tensions over the Israel-Gaza war.
French officials alleged criminals paid by Russia were again responsible.
When authorities trawled through the CCTV of the Stars of David incident, they noticed two couples spraying the stars onto buildings and another person, whose only role seemed to be taking photos of the handiwork.
More crucially, it was this person's responsibility to upload the images online and enable the second part of the operation — spreading the misinformation online.
Once pictures of the stars were uploaded online, they were rapidly circulated by fake accounts on social media platform X working in tandem, connected to a longstanding Russian propaganda network known as Doppelganger.
First detected in 2022, the Doppelganger campaign has acquired dozens of websites that almost exactly replicate existing, respected news organisations such as The Guardian and Bild to spread fake articles to benefit Russia and undermine Western nations.
Profiles on Facebook and X then amplify the fake news and misinformation across social media.
When the red handprint graffiti emerged, a fake article from what appeared to be French news website Artichoc criticised President Emmanuel Macron's response to the incident.
The article was then picked up and spread online by the network of bots.
It ended with the quote: "It is now becoming critical for Emmanuel Macron to re-evaluate his priorities. France needs a leader who is really ready to defend the national interests of the country and its citizens."
"Russia is trying to degrade the 'enemy' with the campaigns that are not in any case or not always attributable or clearly attributable to Russia in order to create chaos, create panic and support anti-democratic voices in those countries," Julia Smirnova, senior research at Center for Monitoring, Analysis and Strategy (CeMAS) tells the ABC.
But the interference wasn't limited to stirring up division over the Middle East.
Experts say the primary purpose of Russia's disinformation efforts is to undermine support for Ukraine.
In early June last year, five coffins draped in the French flag were left near the Eiffel Tower, bearing the inscription "French soldiers of Ukraine".
A week earlier, France had agreed to send military instructors to train Ukrainian troops.
An investigation by independent French outlet Mediapart uncovered the same person was suspected to have taken part in the Red Hands operation and the coffin stunt.
"Russia tries to support its war goals in Ukraine," Ms Smirnova says.
"It tries to diminish support for Ukraine in Western countries, but it also tries to amplify polarising topics, try to weaken Western democracies and to support pro-Russian voices."
Russian President Vladimir Putin last year rejected suggestions his country was deliberately using a disinformation campaign to incite trouble in Europe, saying "it's utter rubbish".
German election in Russia's sights
Germany heads to the polls this weekend and the far-right Alternative for Deutschland party (AfD) is surging in the polls.
That's exactly what Russia wants.
A leak from the Social Design Agency, a Russian company associated with the Doppelganger campaign, revealed that in 2024, the objective of the Doppelganger operation was to boost the popularity of the AfD to 20 per cent in monthly polls and hurt the Greens' chances.
The AfD is now polling at 20 per cent.
Julia Smirnova says there's examples of AfD MPs sharing pro-Russian views and disinformation publicly.
"There is some evidence that pro-Kremlin actors paid money to some AfD politicians," she says.
"We don't know if they spread this disinformation because they really believed in it, because they thought that it just plays into their agenda, or because they were paid by Russia.
"We definitely see this kind of a symbiotic relationship between the far-right AfD and Russian actors."
Research analyst at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, Etienne Soula, says that "Russia has a key interest now in sowing as much chaos as they can in that election".
Germany is Europe's biggest economy and the second-largest donor to Ukraine.
Between mid-December and mid-January, CeMAS identified more than 600 posts on X in German that fit the usual pattern of the Doppelganger campaign.
The posts target the major political parties such as the Greens, Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which are expected to gain the highest share of votes in the election.
All recent references to the far-right AfD on the accounts analysed have been positive, CeMAS says.
But it's not just the far-right Russia is interested in.
Sensitive Russian documents, obtained by European intelligence services and The Washington Post in 2023 reveal Moscow wanted to bring Germany's far-right and far-left parties together to form an anti-Ukraine coalition.
In 2023, the far-left Die Linke party and far-right AfD were represented at a rally demanding Germany stop sending weapons to Ukraine which drew more than 10,000 people.
The anti-Ukraine coalition hasn't formed but the AfD is inching closer to a tilt at a majority without the help of the far left.
"I think it would be reductive to attribute all of those [AfD] gains to Russian activities," Etienne Soula says.
"I think what can be said with certainty is that there's a convergence, basically, that plays into Russia's favour between these parties making progress and defending positions that help Russia."
Beyond Germany and France
Russia's efforts to influence and destabilise extend far beyond France and Germany.
In Moldova, Russia was accused of spending tens of millions of dollars to bribe voters not to support closer ties to the West in multiple elections in October 2024.
The operation was so blatant, sniffer dogs and police detected the equivalent of $2.4 million in suitcases from passengers arriving from Russia on one day alone in May last year.
At least 130,000 Moldovans, or 10 per cent of the active electorate, are believed to have been paid as part of the scheme.
The referendum backing closer ties to the EU passed by a thin margin.
In Romania, the constitutional court cancelled the presidential election results over allegations Russia was involved in a massive influence campaign on TikTok to support a little-known far-right candidate who pledged to end support for the war in Ukraine.
Despite declaring zero campaign spending, Calin Georgescu claimed a shock victory in the first round of voting after attracting 52 million views on his TikTok videos in just four days.
Georgia is drifting back into Russia's orbit, too.
The pro-Kremlin Georgian Dream won its fourth consecutive term in October but faces accusations from opposition parties the vote was rigged and dogged with irregularities.
"I think Putin has not really hidden his ambitions to recreate the Soviet Union in some shape or form. And so basically what's at stake is so existential for not only the countries that gained their independence after the fall of the Soviet Union, but kind of for Europe as a whole," Etienne Soula says.
"I don't know how much reaction would be an overreaction, considering how existential the stakes are. And as of right now, I would actually argue that European countries are not reacting enough."
Is Doppelganger effective?
The impact of Russian interference is hard to quantify.
"When it comes to the so-called Doppelganger campaign, I would say that its impact has been limited so far," Ms Smirnova says.
"It has been effective in staying on different social media platforms over the years."
But she points out that the campaigns can be effective with audiences who already mistrust the government or believe in pro-Kremlin narratives.
"Then there are also all the campaigns for Russian actors working with Western influences. And these campaigns generally have more reach because posts are distributed not just by bots, but by real people with a real followership," she says.
Efforts to combat the Russian disinformation campaigns on social media have varied.
In July 2024, CeMAS and the international research group Counter Disinformation Network informed X of 623 posts that they suspected to be part of the Doppelganger campaign.
In October of that year, 622 of those posts were still online.
