Disinfo: By supporting Euromaidan, the EU promoted similar protests in the EU

Summary

Western politicians must have realised by now that by praising the Ukrainian Euromaidan in 2013, they promoted similar protests in the EU itself. Unhappy EU citizens envied Ukrainians and learnt how to protest from them, particularly given that the Ukrainian coup d’état was named the Revolution of Dignity. A revolutionary fuse and potential in the EU is much larger than in the post-Soviet space. Revolutionary processes in the EU do not need external management, they spark spontaneously from time to time out of deep problems in the Roman-Germanic world. Europe continues to collapse, and the EU, in a pathetic attempt to stop this process by submitting itself to the overseas empire, is crumbling too. The fatal error of European politicians is to follow their American master and repeat what the U.S. did in Latin America in the last two centuries. “Banana republics” can be created in the centre of Europe, but given the EU’s much softer domestic structure compared to strict federal authority in the U.S., Europe will not stand it. Unhappy with the influx of migrants, Europeans rebelled and followed Kosovo and Ukraine as examples. Now the ashes of burning Catalonia are coming to Europe, which is seemingly about to collapse.

Disproof

This article puts forward a number of unfounded parallels and generalisations and contains recurring propaganda pro-Kremlin narratives about the Ukrainian coup d'état, lost sovereignty especially the EU's subordination to the U.S. and the EU's imminent collapse. The Catalan protests cannot be simply deduced from the events in Kosovo or Ukraine as the article suggests.The recent strike and protests erupted because of the ruling of Spain’s Supreme Court which sentenced nine Catalan pro-independence leaders to jail for sedition. In Kosovo, there was a civil war, with thousands of casualties and hundreds of thousands of refugees which ended after NATO’s 78-day air campaign against Milosevic’s regime. Since June 1999, NATO has been leading a peace-support operation in Kosovo, the Kosovo Force (KFOR), in accordance with the mandate from United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 (1999). This was followed by a decade of international administration and status negotiations. In 2008, the EU Council stressed that in view of the conflict of the 1990s and the extended period of international administration under Security Council Resolution 1244, Kosovo constituted a sui generis case. The International Court of Justice has stated that the declaration of independence of Kosovo did not violate international law. There was no coup d'état in Ukraine. The spontaneous onset of the Euromaidan protests was an organic reaction by numerous parts of the Ukrainian population to former President Yanukovych’s sudden departure from the promised Association Agreement with the European Union in November 2013. See the full debunk of this disinformation claim here. The claim about collapsing EU is not connected to real conditions in Europe. Support for the EU, as shown in the latest Eurobarometer poll, remains at historically high levels. Asked if a referendum was held tomorrow regarding the country's membership of the EU, only 10% of Spaniards said they would vote to leave the EU. See earlier disinformation cases alleging that a number of EU countries teeter on the brink of default, that Italy, Spain, Portugal, and possibly even France are in line to exit the EU, and that the logical answer from Europe to the Catalonia referendum would have been to recognise the independence of Catalonia and bomb Madrid.

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Sonar2050 (Archived)
  • Reported in: Issue 169
  • DATE OF PUBLICATION: 18/10/2019
  • Outlet language(s) Russian
  • Countries and/or Regions discussed in the disinformation: Kosovo, Spain, US, Ukraine
  • Keywords: Catalonia, EU disintegration, European Union, Protest, Sovereignty, Europe, Migration crisis, Conspiracy theory, Euromaidan, Coup
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Disinfo: Ukrainian diaspora condemned the sanctions policy on Crimea

Ukrainians living abroad condemned the sanctions policy targeting Crimea due to its reunification with Russia.

Oct 17, 2019
Disproof

Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the illegal annexation of Crimea. This is not the first attempt to create the illusion of international support for the Crimea annexed by Russia. Russian occupying authorities held a round table in Crimea entitled Cooperation of Crimean Ukrainians with compatriots abroad, calling the event a meeting of the Ukrainian diaspora. Among the 15 participants from abroad who came for this round table, were representatives from several post-Soviet countries and from the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics. The World Congress of Ukrainians, the largest public organisation of Ukrainians who live abroad, repeatedly makes statements about the illegal annexation of Crimea, and the need to extend sanctions to increase pressure on Russia.

Disinfo: German missions abroad are under foreign control and produce failed, corrupt states

The Bundeswehr fights thousands of kilometres away from its own borders, under foreign control. And mostly with devastating consequences, even for Germany. Whether Afghanistan or Kosovo, in the end Germany gets a failed, corrupt quasi-state as a mortgage that exports poverty refugees, drugs and criminals. And the USA? They get new US bases abroad.

Oct 17, 2019
Disproof

Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about German-Western relations, that Germany is not sovereign or governed by "foreign control", and disinformation about German foreign missions. Pro-Kremlin outlets often use this disinformation narrative about different countries being under the American thumb - see other examples here. Germany is an independent and sovereign country and is not dependent on the United States of America in terms of foreign policy making and therefore it is a conspiracy theory presented without any evidence. Germany and the US have close partner relations of two sovereign and independent countries. The claims made about German foreign missions in Kosovo (KFOR) and Afghanistan (Resolute Support) are squandering and false. German missions abroad contribute to the long-term stabilisation of Kosovo and Afghanistan. Significant steps have already been taken to strengthen the security structures on the ground. According to the German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), the number of asylum applications in Germany is declining in 2019. This trend has continued since 2015, since a gradual reduction in the number of refugees has been recorded in Germany. An excerpt from the Federal Office's current statistics for September 2019 (page 11 of 19). In the month under review, September 2019, 13,321 asylum procedures were decided by the Federal Office. Most decisions were made for Syria (3,370), Iraq (1,346) and Afghanistan (1,000). Compared to the previous month (15,040 decisions), the number of decisions fell by 11.4%. Compared to the previous year (September 2018: 16,008 decisions), the number of decisions on asylum applications fell by 16.8%. For other disinformation cases see: Germany is a vassal of the US; Germany is the executor of US hegemony over Europe; The USA is controlling Europe through occupied Germany; Germany will have to choose between defending Europe's interest and catering to Washington.