Disinfo: Kyiv did nothing to implement Minsk agreements

Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative aiming to discredit the International Joint Investigation (JIT) into the downing of flight MH17. The Joint Investigation Team (JIT), which is comprised of the Dutch Public Prosecution Service officials and the Dutch police, along with police and criminal justice authorities from Australia, Belgium, Malaysia and Ukraine, has concluded that flight MH17 was shot down on 17 July 2014 by a missile of the 9M38 series, launched by a BUK-TELAR, from farmland in the vicinity of Pervomaiskiy. At that time, the area was controlled by pro-Russian fighters. The BUK-TELAR was brought in from the territory of the Russian Federation and subsequently, after shooting down flight MH17, was taken back to the Russian Federation. The Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team (JIT) has concluded that the BUK-TELAR used to down MH17 originates from the 53rd Anti Aircraft Missile brigade, a unit of the Russian army from Kursk in the Russian Federation. On the basis of the investigation conducted by the JIT, the Dutch Public Prosecution Service is prosecuting Igor Vsevolodovich Girkin, Sergey Nikolayevich Dubinskiy, Oleg Yuldashevich Pulatov, and Leonid Volodymyrovych Kharchenko for causing the crash of MH17 and murdering the 298 persons on board. The trial began on 9 March 2020 in the Netherlands. The European Union and NATO have called on the Russian Federation to accept its responsibility and to fully cooperate with all efforts to establish accountability. On the basis of the JIT’s conclusions, the Netherlands and Australia are convinced that Russia is responsible for the deployment of the BUK installation that was used to down MH17. The two governments are formally holding Russia accountable. On top of that, on 10 July 2020, the Dutch government decided to bring Russia before the European Court of Human Rights for its role in the downing of Flight MH17. As stated on the government's website, it "attaches importance to continuing the meetings with Russia on the matter of state responsibility. The purpose of these meetings is to find a solution that does justice to the enormous suffering and damage cause by the downing of Flight MH17." You can see other examples of pro-Kremlin disinformation on the MH17 case in our database, such as claims that JIT tampered with the evidence; that the plane was not downed by a BUK missile, but rather by a Ukrainian fighter; that the plane crash was triggered by an explosion on board; that the trial in The Hague is not justice but information warfare; that Moscow-supplied radar data was rejected; or that the MH17 crash was planned by Ukrainian, American, and Dutch intelligence agencies.

Contrary to the claim, criticism of the visit paid by Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador to Donald Trump is largely driven by a long series of comments on Mexicans by the US president that many of them considered offensive, such as calling them “rapists” (as he did in 2015 and 2018) and accusing them of “bringing drugs and crime” to the US; by the threat of imposing crippling tariffs on Mexico, which he once called “an enemy country”; and by the decision to build a border wall that seriously harms communities in northern Mexico while claiming that the Mexican government would pay for it, among other things. The affirmation that the people expressing this criticism are globalists influenced by Soros-owned media is a conspiracy theory not backed by any evidence. This also fits into a recurrent pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about mainstream media being controlled by billionaire George Soros and shaping public opinion against President Trump (and, in this case, against leftist López Obrador too). The article also has an anti-Semitic undertone, a frequent feature in pro-Kremlin media, as shown by the reference to “Talmudic” Jared Kushner, a not very subtle euphemism for “Jew”. You can see other examples of these disinformation narratives in our database, such as claims that George Soros is funding US riots, though at the same time his followers fear that this may lead to Trump’s reelection; that Trump’s impeachment was a failed plot by a group of Democrats obsessed with Soros, and that the whistleblower who triggered it had also links to the billionaire; that Soros-funded globalists want to take advantage of Covid-19 to abolish cash, privacy and the family; or that Soros is behind political vandalism in Mexico City.