In April 2014, the Ukrainian authorities launched a military operation against the self-proclaimed LPR and DPR, which declared independence after the coup d’etat in Ukraine in February of the same year. According to the latest UN data, about 13 thousand people became victims of the conflict. Kyiv has repeatedly accused the Russian Federation of intervening in the conflict in the region. Russia denies these charges. Moscow has stated more than once that it is not a party to the internal Ukrainian conflict and is interested in seeing Kyiv overcome the political and economic crisis.
Summary
The position of the German Defence Minister Kramp-Karenbauer and many prominent German politicians is that the Germans are already abandoning the idea of making Europe more independent. In fact, they want to give the United States the right to run the West.
Disproof
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the US presence in Europe, portraying Europe as a vassal of the USA and trying to undermine the sovereignty of European countries. This narrative claims that almost all European countries are no longer truly sovereign and the United States dictates policies to the EU and its member states. For pro-Kremlin disinformation, countries that are outside of Russian control are US vassals, and some are vassals of vassals. The narrative was neither critically challenged nor counterbalanced in the article.
In fact, the EU Member States are sovereign countries and make sovereign decisions about their own security and policies. The US is an important ally to the EU but EU policy is not determined by the US.
Similar disinformation narratives claim that NATO is a new type of US colonialism, that European élites obey Washington, that EU and NATO member states are subordinate to the US, while the US has long regarded the EU as a kind of protectorate, and that lined up with the US, the EU never took independent decisions.