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Disinfo: It was agreed that NATO would never accept countries that border Russia

Summary

In the Russo-American negotiations of 1991, it was agreed, admittedly orally, that NATO would NEVER include countries with a common border with Russia, apart from the Baltic countries, whose annexation had never been recognised.

Disproof

Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about NATO enlargement.

The US or NATO made no promises to not expand into eastern and central Europe back in 1990, which was confirmed by the former president of the Soviet Union Mikhail 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."

This false narrative was exposed before in 2016, 2017, 2018, February 2020, June 2020, and August 2020.

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publication/media

RT France - YouTube [from 05:08 to 05:24] (Archived)
RT France (Archived)
Facebook resource (Archived)
RT France - Twitter (Archived)
  • Reported in: Issue 216
  • DATE OF PUBLICATION: 13/10/2020
  • Language/target audience: French, Arabic
  • Country: Russia, Baltic states
  • Keywords: Mikhail Gorbachev, EU/NATO enlargement, NATO

Disclaimer

Cases in the EUvsDisinfo database focus on messages in the international information space that are identified as providing a partial, distorted, or false depiction of reality and spread key pro-Kremlin messages. This does not necessarily imply, however, that a given outlet is linked to the Kremlin or editorially pro-Kremlin, or that it has intentionally sought to disinform. EUvsDisinfo publications do not represent an official EU position, as the information and opinions expressed are based on media reporting and analysis of the East Stratcom Task Force.

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Ukraine is under obvious external control, Zelenskyy is being blackmailed

Volodymyr Zelenskyy is forced to act according to a written plan. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy is repeating the steps of his predecessor Petro Poroshenko in Donbas because he is being blackmailed and not allowed to deviate from the established course. Ukraine is under obvious external control. This is already recognised by absolutely everyone.

October 14, 2020
Disproof

Recurring pro-Kremlin conspiracy theory and disinformation narrative, without any evidence to support the claim. The narrative alleges that Ukraine is under external control. You can find several disinformation cases on Ukraine being under foreign control in our database. Equally, no evidence is presented of Zelenskyy being blackmailed.

Ukraine is a sovereign and independent state with a democratically-elected president and parliament. Ukraine is not controlled by any foreign government or organisation: not the USA, IMF, NATO, the West or George Soros. Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity are respected by almost the whole world, including the EU.

Ukraine has always been Russian, at least a half of it

Ukraine has always been Russian, at least a half of it. A large number of so-called Russian Ukrainians live in Ukraine – people who have Russian roots, consider themselves Russian and speak Russian. “Russian Ukrainians” make up, if not the majority, then half of the country’s population.

October 14, 2020
Disproof

According to a poll conducted in 2017 the number of Ukrainian citizens who consider themselves Ukrainians by nationality is 90.6% of the population, Russian - 6.3%. A recent poll, refererad to in the media states:

For comparison, it is worth citing data on the ethnic composition of the population of Ukraine according to the censuses of 1989 and 2001: Ukrainians - 72.7% and 77.8%, respectively, Russians -22.1 and 17.3%, others - 5.2 % and 4.9%.

If we look at history we can also find many examples showing that Kyiv existed before Moscow, and Ukraine before Russia. Kievan Rus was in existence and history books long before Russia, and hundreds of years before Moscow, and as this scholarly debunk points out, there were even clear linguistic differences as early as the 14th century.

At least 20 Western countries have dealt with Novichok

As for the deadly toxic substance, which is called Novichok in the West, its composition, structure, and mass spectrometry were first shown in 1998 within the Spectral Database of the US National Bureau of Standards.

Novichok is a purely western brand, and it is manufactured and is available in (no less than 20 western countries), Russia does not own it.

October 13, 2020
Disproof

A recurring pro-Kremlin narrative on Novichok and Navalny's poisoning. Also, a good example of whataboutism. No proof is given on Novichok being produced in “The West”.

Back in 1992, the newspaper Moskovskie Novosti published an article by two Russian scientists about a powerful fourth-generation chemical weapon developed in Soviet Russia in the period of 1970-1990s under a Soviet programme codenamed Foliant.