Disinfo: Foreign diplomats interfere in internal affairs of Russia

Summary

About 20 representatives of the embassies of Western countries such as the United States, Great Britain, Bulgaria, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Austria have arrived [to a court hearing]. Diplomats traditionally support their citizens in foreign courts. Even though the West considers Navalny “one of its own,” he is a citizen of the Russian Federation. This is not just interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state. It is a representation of the unsightly and illegal role of the collective West in its attempts to contain Russia.

Disproof

Repeated Pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives the West and Alexei Navalny.

Russia opposition politician Alexei Navalny was detained and shortly after that sentenced to prison, following his return to Russia from Germany where he was treated from the poisoning with Novichok-type nerve agent. The European Union has condemned the detention of Alexei Navalny and called for his immediate release.

Court hearings are, as a rule, open to the public. Diplomats have the right, just as any other member of the public, to attend a court hearing. This is a century long, normal part of diplomats’ work. Russia is a member of the Council of Europe (CoE) and bound by the same conventions incl. the European Convention on Human Rights, which, among others, defines Russia's international obligations on human rights.

Contrary to the claim, criticism on the handling of the Navalny case is not tantamount to interfering in Russia’s domestic affairs but a legitimate stance in regard to human rights and the rule of law in the country. The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that the charges against Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny are politically motivated and arbitrary and manifestly unreasonable. As a signatory of the European Convention on Human Rights, Russia accepts the jurisdiction of the ECHR and forced to comply with its rulings.

Shortly after Alexei Navalny was sentenced, Russia expelled 3 diplomats from Germany, Sweden and Poland. This move was strongly condemned by the EU.

Pro-Kremlin outlets have attempted to obfuscate the Russian government's role in the attack attributing Navalny's illness to moonshine, psychosomatic stress, overzealous dieting, low blood sugar, a flare-up of an unspecified chronic illness, and psychiatric medication.

publication/media

  • Reported in: Issue 230
  • DATE OF PUBLICATION: 02/02/2021
  • Outlet language(s) German
  • Countries and/or Regions discussed in the disinformation: Austria, UK, Bulgaria, Poland, US, Lithuania, Russia, Latvia
  • Keywords: Anti-Russian, Alexei Navalny
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Disinfo: Since the coup Ukraine became a failed American colony 

Since the coup d’état in Ukraine in 2014, when the United States of America and the European Union, by supporting Nazi militants, overthrew the legitimate president, Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine has been in constant financial crises.

After the installation of a puppet agent system, operating under the orders of the United States Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine is steadfastly moving towards severing its economic relations with Russia, which is effectively causing the destruction of its industry, as it has become deprived of Russian suppliers and Russian markets.

Ukraine has long become an American colony and is increasingly becoming a failed state… According to some estimates, Ukraine is the only country in the world which GPD has not grown since 1991 and which forbids half of the country’s population to speak their native language – Russian.

Disproof

Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about Ukraine as a failed state, which is consistent with pro-Kremlin narratives alleging that Ukraine is a degrading state, also consistent with the narrative depicting the 2013-14 Ukrainian revolution as a coup d’état orchestrated by the West.

Ukraine, as an independent country, has a functioning government and economy, it is a member of many international organisations, such as the United Nations and the Council of Europe, and a party to international agreements. Ukraine has bilateral diplomatic relations with the majority of countries.

Disinfo: The West is rewriting history: it is a squall attack on the truth

The West is rewriting history with might and main. And this rewriting has a pronounced anti-Russian character. It acquired such importance after first “exposing” the Soviet Union, and then equating everything Soviet with Russian.

In the countries of Eastern Europe, everything started with the introduction of such installations and eventually moved on to the fact that they began to demolish monuments to Soviet soldiers. In the Czech Republic, Poland, the Baltics, they began to destroy and blot out, wielding bulldozers and crowbars, the memory of those who actually gave life to Eastern Europeans. This is no longer just Jesuit, but satanic logic.

On the whole, it is obvious that there is not just a massive, but a squall attack not only and not so much on Russia as on the truth. The West spends tens of billions of energy recruiting liars and slanderers, creating fakes and rewriting history, with one goal: to present itself as the only good and saviour. This whitewashes their past and, accordingly, the present, and at the same time creates the balancer necessary for the Western model, when the pole of evil is needed (Russia was assigned to its role – to no purpose).

Disproof

This message is part of the Kremlin’s campaign on historical revisionism of WWII and is also consistent with recurring pro-Kremlin propaganda narrative about anti-Russian policies of aggressive West. According to Kremlin's policy, the official Russian historiography is the only “true” way of interpreting the historical events about WWII.

The European Parliament called the war the bloodiest tragedy of the century, which resulted in millions of victims of authoritarian regimes both of fascist Germany and the USSR. The European Parliament adopted a resolution, describing the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact of 23 August 1939 as a key element paving the way for the outbreak of World War II. The European Parliament also paid tribute to the victims of Stalinism, Nazism and other totalitarian and authoritarian regimes. Regardless of this, the Western historians acknowledge the role played by the USSR in defeating Nazism and do not question the Soviet contribution to the victory in WWII and the status of the USSR as a country which had won in WWII. The policy of the US or the EU is not directed against Russia or any other country.

Disinfo: There is no proof about what happened to Litvinenko and the Skripals

We do not know who poisoned the Skripals, Litvinenko, whether they were poisoned, we do not know whether Russia did it or not. We do not know who did it, and how, and why, but I will tell you an unpopular thing, that if I received evidence that some special services did it against the now employees of another special services, I would not mind.

Disproof

Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives about the Skripal poisoning and the poisoning of a Russian-defector Alexander Litvinenko.

Moscow's involvement in the poisoning of the Skripals has been proven via a thorough investigation. The British Police have presented a solid chain of evidence on the Skripal case, with pictures, connecting the suspects to the locations in the case. Parts of the material have been released to the public. The evidence was sufficient to charge two Russian nationals, Anatoliy Chepiga and Aleksandr Mishkin with the attack on the Skripals, both Russian military intelligence operatives from the GRU, who travelled to the UK using fake names and documents.