Disinfo: By giving membership to Georgia and Ukraine, NATO will contradict to its earlier guarantees

Summary

Moscow has repeatedly opposed the strengthening of the alliance by means of giving membership to Georgia and Ukraine. By doing so the alliance contradicts the guarantees given by Western leaders and Russia reserves the right to respond to the aggressive actions of its foreign partners.

Disproof

Recurring pro-Kremlin narrative on NATO. Also, consistent with the NATO is encircling Russia narrative. By signing the 1997 Act, Russia committed not to use force or any other method of threat neither against NATO members, nor against any other state. Russia violated the given principles as by the military intervention to Georgia in 2008, as by the illegal annexation of Crimea. NATO made no promises not to expand into eastern and central Europe back in 1990, which was confirmed by the former president of the Soviet Union Mihail Gorbachev. Back in 2014, Gorbachev said: "The topic of ‘NATO expansion’ was not discussed at all, and it wasn’t brought up in those years. I say this with full responsibility." Furthermore, the claim about NATO "expansion" misrepresents the process of NATO enlargement. NATO does not "expand" but considers the applications of candidate countries which want to join.

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sputnik-abkhazia.ru
  • Reported in: Issue 171
  • DATE OF PUBLICATION: 30/10/2019
  • Outlet language(s) Russian
  • Countries and/or Regions discussed in the disinformation: Georgia, Ukraine
  • Keywords: EU/NATO enlargement
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Disinfo: Civilians in the Finnish concentration camps in Carelia are victims of genocide

Civilians in the Finnish concentration camps in Russia’s Carelia during WWII are victims of genocide and should ask for a compensation from Finnish authorities.

Oct 29, 2019
Disproof

Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation message focusing on Finland and Russia's Karelia during the WWII. This time the topic peaked on pro-Kremlin media's agenda in October 2019 after Russia's Security Service FSB released "secret documents" about the conditions in the Finnish camps. The researchers have studied the treatment of civilians detained in the Finnish camps established in the Finnish-occupied Soviet Karelia in WWII, and nothing suggests Finns aimed at a genocide of Russians or Slavic nations. The word genocide is frequently used in pro-Kremlin disinformation, but it seldom corresponds to the actual definition of a genocide. Recently, the emphasis of the disinformation campaign has been on Sandarmokh, where 7000-9000 victims of Stalin's terror were executed in the Republic of Karelia, Russia, 1937-1938. Hundreds of monuments have been erected in Sandarmokh to commemorate the victims. To distract audiences from discussing Stalin's era repressions, beginning 2016, a disinformation message started being spread that among the dead were Soviet prisoners of war shot by invading Finns during 1941-44. There is no evidence to support the claim. Read the full debunk for Sandarmokh here.

Disinfo: Ukraine was created by Joseph Stalin

Do you know who created your country? It [Ukraine] was created by Stalin, whom you hate.

Oct 29, 2019
Disproof

Pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the history of Ukraine and Ukrainian statehood. The history of Ukraine dates back to the times of the Kyivan Rus’ in the IX-XIII centuries. As a nation-state, Ukraine was formed during the XVI-XIX centuries when it was divided by major European states: the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Rzeczpospolita) and the Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires. However, in the middle of the XVII century, parts of Ukraine's territories received independence from Poland and created an independent Cossacks Hetmanate. Later, it signed a military and political cooperation deal with Moscow, which was then used by Russian rulers to deprive Hetmanate of its sovereign rights. In the early XX century, after the collapse of the Russian empire, the Ukrainian People’s Republic was proclaimed. In Western Ukraine, which at the time was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, the Western Ukrainian National Republic was created. On 22 January 1919, the two states signed a Unification Act creating a unified state. Other territories wanted to join the new Ukrainian state, such as Northern Bukovyna and Crimea, and adopted appeals to the government of a unified Ukrainian People’s Republic. For a historical perspective see here [in Ukrainian].