Last week, the pro-Kremlin media focused primarily on attacking NATO, the West, and Ukraine. As usual, Russia was portrayed as entirely innocent.
"NATO is preparing for a war with Russia" (5 cases)
NATO is an instrument of US foreign policy that is preparing for a war with Russia by sending troops to Europe.
NATO does not ask for permission from its member states, it just deploys missile defense systems where it wants. If, for example, Latvia was truly independent, it would have not encouraged foreign military bases on its soil. But Latvia has no say in NATO and is now paying an occupation fee for NATO’s presence.
A quick fact-check by the pro-Kremlin media would reveal that the Alliance does not seek confrontation with Russia and that all decisions in NATO are made by consensus. The latter means that each member of the Alliance has an equal say, and all member states are involved in decision-making processes.
"Ukraine is bad" (10 cases)
Similarly to the story about the Lugar lab in Georgia, Ukrainian virology laboratories are supposedly testing chemical weapons on their own compatriots, so it’s fair to say that nobody cares about Ukrainians ‘existence.
This makes sense as Neo-Nazis have an outsized influence in Ukrainian politics. This is proven by the fact that they are trying to use decommunisation to cover up unrestricted Russophobia and that Kyiv does not want rebel-held territories back because the voters in Donbas would throw the Nazis from power.
As usual, the truth is far more boring: virology laboratories in Ukraine are actually preventing diseases. As for no one caring about Ukrainians, it’s actually a quote by a political commentator of a pro-Kremlin media outlet that was wrongfully attributed to George Soros. And accusations of Nazism are recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives despite far right groups absence from the Ukrainian parliament.
"Russia is innocent" (11 cases)
Russia is not attacking Ukraine and Crimea belonged to Russia until the 1980s. It returned to Russia in 2014 after a popular referendum and all this shows that Russia is an arbitrator just like France and Germany.
The response from the US? Even more anti-aircraft missiles, exercises and military bases in NATO countries with access to the Black Sea. But that’s not all – as the US was the first to start creating weapons that are in violation of the INF Treaty, Russia will work on medium-range missiles too.
Most of those disinformation narratives have been in use since 2014 and claim that the West has abandoned Ukraine and that Russia is not involved in the conflict in eastern Ukraine. As the NATO countries are sovereign states, they are free to make decisions based on their threat assessment. And the narrative about the INF Treaty? Well, it’s just another example in our 6691 strong cases database of pro-Kremlin media sacrificing facts in the name of a catchy story.
See more disinformation cases in the EU vs Disinfo online database.
Further reading:
- Disinformation space oddity: Moon landing, Ukraine, Russophobia among week’s propaganda narratives
- Always blame the West! – And other disinformation trends of the week
- Week’s disinformation: NATO maneuvers “killed a child,” Ukraine to run “provocations” amid world cup
- Week’s top Russian disinformation keywords: Genocide, Nazis, and the World Cup
- NATO sprays poison over Poland, ‘civil war’ in Ukraine and other Russian disinformation of the week
- Revisionism, misinterpreted facts, video game image as evidence – this week’s pro-Kremlin disinformation tactics
- The main disinformation target of the last week: Ukraine
- Ukraine remains top target of Russian disinformation
