Disinfo: Kaliningrad is a "security threat" to NATO

Summary

NATO considers Kaliningrad a “security threat” to its members.

Disproof

A recurring pro-Kremlin narrative on Western attempts to encircle Russia, Western belligerence and Western aggression against Kaliningrad. In addition, during the Warsaw summit in July 2016, NATO has made it clear that "The Alliance does not seek confrontation and poses no threat to Russia". Read more about this narrative o Polygraph.

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  • Reported in: Issue 186
  • DATE OF PUBLICATION: 25/02/2020
  • Outlet language(s) Arabic
  • Countries and/or Regions discussed in the disinformation: Russia
  • Keywords: Kaliningrad, Anti-Russian, Encircling Russia, Destabilising Russia, NATO
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Disinfo: Coronavirus is an ethnic biological weapon

Coronavirus is an ethnic biological weapon used by countries against a hostile population. The Chinese Coronavirus strain is “artificially created”, and the pharmaceutical companies are behind it, and it is historically known that the United States of America ran a laboratory in Georgia, where it was testing biological weapons on humans.

Feb 24, 2020
Disproof

Conspiracy theory about the 2019-nCoV coronavirus, based on recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives about the biological weapons and the Lugar Lab in Georgia. The current coronavirus (2019-nCoV) comes from a family of viruses that include other viruses such as SARS and MERS. It was first reported in the Chinese city of Wuhan in central China and has been rapidly spreading with new cases being reported in the Asia-Pacific region as well as Europe, North America and the Middle East, causing more than 700 deaths by 10 February 2020. The identity of the animal source of the coronavirus, named nCoV-2019, has been one of the key questions for the researchers. Coronaviruses are known to circulate in mammals and birds, and scientists have already suggested that nCoV-2019 originally came from bats. One of the previous coronaviruses that caused severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, spread from bats to civet cats to humans. The South China Agricultural University in Guangzhou says that two of its researchers have identified the pangolin as the potential source of nCoV-2019. This was announced to reporters at a press conference on 7 February 2020. Read similar disinformation cases: the US prepares biological weapons, the US is constructing secret biological labs, and a new Chinese coronavirus was likely elaborated in NATO Biolabs.

Disinfo: High rating given to Estonia by "Reporters without borders" is fiction

Such a situation is unacceptable in the European country. There is no freedom of speech in Estonia. Those high ratings given to them by “Reporters without borders” (RSF) are fictions.

Feb 24, 2020
Disproof

One of the methods of Kremlin disinformation is to deny the authority of international organisations and independent agencies and question their missions.

Reporters Without Borders, also known as Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF), is a leading international non-profit and non-governmental organisation that safeguards the right to freedom of information. Its mandate is to promote free, independent and pluralistic journalism and to defend media workers. In Estonia, Sputnik is represented as a victim of unprecedented persecution. This kind of statements were debunked several times (read more here).

Disinfo: US Democrats accuse Russia of interference as a preventive measure for their defeat

US Democrats are preparing themselves for defeat in the future elections: they started again with the old song that “Russia is interfering”, despite that it is hard to imagine why Russia would like to have Donald Trump as president since US-Russia relations hardly improved after his election. In fact, this can be said of all candidates, and therefore Russian interference in the US election makes no sense. The rhetorical figure ‘but we said’ could help Democrats to save face for some time after the defeat, but some of them can’t wait, spending all their arsenal of attacks before the election.

Feb 24, 2020
Disproof

It is not representatives of the Democratic Party, but members of the US intelligence community and independent observers who are warning of Russia’s attempts to interfere in the 2020 elections. In February 2020, US intelligence officers warned lawmakers that about Russia was to help both Donald Trump and Democratic aspiring candidate Bernie Sanders. Some of these attempts were widely documented by social media investigations company Graphika in a report published in October 2019.

Contrary to the claim of the article, there are many reasons why Russia may want to do this, from increasing US polarisation to deepen divisions inside the Democratic Party to sowing mistrust on democracy.