A cameraman for one of Russia’s largest war channels stood a few metres from Chancellor Friedrich Merz in August, filming him on a phone. ZDF broadcast the footage in its coverage of the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern election campaign. The man in the frame is Igor Dolmatov. He has lived in Berlin since at least 2018, holds an annual contract with the Iswestija publishing group, and on 9 September travelled to Prague with reporter Vitaly Chashchukhin to film an interview for Rybar. Chashchukhin told the Czech reporters at the meeting point that he was working for Rybar. Police questioned both men for nine hours and ordered them out of the country within three days.
They went home to Zehlendorf, Berlin because German leadership is asleep at the wheel.
The men have an employer on the EU broadcasting ban since 17 May 2024. Rybar’s founder Mikhail Zvinchuk has been on the EU sanctions list since June 2023 as a member of the working group Putin created to coordinate mobilisation for the war. The US State Department has offered up to $10 million for information on Rybar and nine named members of its staff since October 2024 and names Rostec, the state arms holding, as the channel’s funder. Two men working for that channel have been registered residents of Berlin’s most expensive district for a combined two decades. Seznam Zprávy exposed them by answering an interview request. CORRECTIV and iStories then documented the addresses, the contracts, the salaries and the car.
Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt has spent sixteen months barking about the standard for who leaves Germany.
On 18 July 2025 his ministry flew 81 Afghan men to Kabul and he called them “schwere und schwerste Straftäter”. On 23 December 2025 the ministry announced the first removal to Syria since 2011, a man convicted in Lower Saxony, alongside an Afghan convicted in Bavaria of assault. Dobrindt’s words that day:
Unsere Gesellschaft hat ein berechtigtes Interesse daran, dass Straftäter unser Land verlassen. Wir stehen für Kontrolle, Konsequenz und klare Kante.
A second Syrian followed in January. Charter flights carried 20 Afghans in February 2026, 25 in April and 32 in June. Since July 2026, per Bundestag data compiled by Mediendienst Integration, every adult single male Afghan without a right to remain can be presented to the Afghan embassy for travel documents, conviction or no conviction. The minister’s summary of the policy:
Wer schwere Straftaten begeht, muss Deutschland verlassen.
He has spent the same period naming the threat. Presenting the Verfassungsschutzbericht 2025 on 30 June he opened with “Deutschland steht unter Druck”, placed Russia first among foreign adversaries for espionage, sabotage and disinformation, and demanded the services be rebuilt into “echte Geheimdienste”. On 28 August he told Baltic interior ministers that attack scenarios and disinformation campaigns were increasing. On 1 September, after attributing the Leipzig airport drone to Russia, he announced stricter entry controls for Russian citizens, the closure of the Bonn consulate and the Russian House in Berlin, and called the package “verhältnismäßig und besonnen, aber gleichermaßen entschlossen”. His ministry’s website introduces disinformation as a hybrid threat with the example of a propaganda video aimed at German support for Ukraine.
Set the standard against the case.
| Removed under Dobrindt | Retained under Dobrindt |
| A Syrian convicted of rape and assault, escorted by Bundespolizei onto a scheduled flight | Iswestija’s Berlin bureau chief since 2019, who renewed his contract on 1 January 2025, eight months after the EU ban, and drew about 10.2 million rubles from the listed outlet in the first seven months of 2025 |
| An Afghan convicted of assault, flown from Munich to Kabul | A cameraman who filmed the Chancellor from inside a campaign crowd in August, then filmed for Rybar in Prague in September |
| Adult single male Afghans with no conviction, presented to their embassy since July 2026 | Two men working for a channel funded by a sanctioned arms conglomerate and carrying a US bounty, on the payroll of an outlet the EU banned |
| Russian citizens generally, under the stricter entry controls of 1 September | Chashchukhin, who crossed to Russia and back at least seven times since 2022 in a Berlin-registered Porsche 718, per FSB border records. It’s easily identified by the rare “Miami Blue” paint, which is basically the AfD color. |
The law Dobrindt uses for the left column already covers the right. The Aufenthaltsgesetz treats a threat to the free democratic order or to the security of the Federal Republic as a particularly serious ground for expulsion under Section 54(1) No. 2, and Section 5(4) requires refusal of a residence title where that ground exists.
Neither provision requires a conviction. They were written for people whose danger lies in what they do for a foreign state rather than in a criminal record. A minister who sends men with no conviction to the Afghan embassy for travel papers has already accepted that conviction is optional. He applies the principle to Afghans and withholds it from Rybar.
Three federal files already held these names, so the plot thickens. Foreign correspondents are accredited through the Bundespresseamt and the Auswärtiges Amt, and Chashchukhin has reported from Berlin for the Iswestija group since 2014, when his Pyaty Kanal segment claimed Cologne schoolchildren were fainting after being made to colour drawings of genitals. The May 2024 ban made every employee of the Berlin bureau an employee of a listed outlet, on a list the federal government helped write. The US reward on Rybar staff has circulated among allied services since October 2024. Bundespolizei enforces the entry controls of 1 September. The BKA, a BMI agency, protects the Chancellor. Each of these files sits under the minister. iStories put its questions to the BMI, the Berlin Senate interior administration and the Berlin LfV.
Berlin declined to comment. The minister has three clear zones of fault.
The first is jurisdiction. Residence permits are issued by Berlin’s Landesamt für Einwanderung. The law it applies is federal, the guidance it follows is written by the BMI, and the minister who negotiated with the Taliban and Damascus to make removals “regelhaft” owns the residence regime end to end. He owns it in Zehlendorf.
The second is counterintelligence. Known propagandists at a fixed address are easier to watch than unknown ones, and a service may prefer to leave them in place. That argument ended on 9 September. The Czech interview, the flight from the meeting point and the expulsion order put both men on notice. Whatever observation value they held was spent in Prague, by Czechs.
The third is the fine print. The May 2024 measure is a broadcasting and content-distribution ban under Regulation 833/2014, and the two men are not themselves listed persons. Paying their salaries breaks no EU rule. Article 2f of the same regulation prohibits facilitating the outlet’s content in the Union. A correspondent bureau exists to produce that content. Its chief renewed his contract to do so after the ban took effect. Prague questioned the two men for nine hours and ordered them out, while Germany plays dumb.
The government closed the Russian House because it housed Kremlin propaganda. It closed the Bonn consulate because official cover enabled hostile activity. It tightened entry rules for Russian citizens because the border is where hybrid operations show. It removes Afghans and Syrians on the principle that people who endanger the public forfeit residence.
Every one of those measures describes Chashchukhin and Dolmatov.
The minister who announced them has to say when his agencies first recorded the two men as Rybar and Iswestija staff, and what followed the May 2024 listing. Until he does, the most effective action taken against Russian propaganda in Berlin this year was taken by a Czech news site and a Czech police station.
