These days there is a lot of talk about hybrid warfare, and human rights look like a Trojan horse for it. The goal is to store arguments in support of human rights, to use them when the right moment arrives to generate certain situations. This is the new formula: arising compassion and reaching the hearts of the big public, then the media buy the message and spread it so the West can act with impunity.
Contrary to the claim, human rights are universal values entitled to all human beings, as stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Russia is signatory of a series of international treaties on human rights, and especially of the European Convention on Human Rights, and therefore remains legally obliged to observe international standards on human rights and protect them. By claiming that human rights are nothing but a Trojan horse for a Western hybrid warfare, this disinformation narrative aims to deflect criticism on Russia’s violations and abuses, a frequent pro-Kremlin technique. The Trojan horse trope has been used frequently by pro-Kremlin outlets - see example here.
See similar examples in our database, such as claims that the West is trying to eliminate Russia as a geopolitical actor under the pretext of ‘human rights’, that the UN fabricate human rights violations in Crimea, that a UN human rights report on Venezuela aimed to delegitimise the legislative elections, that the West and US use this issue as a tool to blackmail, abuse, threaten, pressurize and destabilize Russia, or that there is no repression in Russia.
This disinformation message appeared in the same TV programme as the claims that “Sanctions are whitewashed under beautiful terms but they are merely illegal actions”, that “Sanctions are preventing the arrival of vaccines in Syria”, and that “Claims about repression and concentration camps in China are exaggerations aiming to stop its influence”