Disinfo: Lithuanian Foreign Ministry tries to rewrite the history of World War II

Summary

The Lithuanian Foreign Ministry suggests that the Parliament should condemn attempts to rewrite history. The unpleasant part of this initiative is that Russia appears in its wording, while Russia actually did not rewrite any history. On the contrary, it carefully defends the historical truth, which some politicians, in particular, the Lithuanian Foreign Minister, are trying to reconsider and even to legally prohibit.

Disproof

This message is part of the Kremlin’s policy of historical revisionism – it accuses the Baltic states, Ukraine and Poland in “falsification and re-writing” of their history. It is a fact that both Nazi Germany and the Stalinist USSR were totalitarian regimes, which caused the deaths of tens of millions of people. It is also proven that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact contained the Secret Supplementary Protocol, which assumed the division of the territories of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, and Romania into Soviet and Nazi spheres of influence. The Soviet Union's occupation of the Baltic states lasted from 1940-1941 and 1944-1990 and resulted in mass deportations and repressions against local populations. Read similar cases claiming that Lithuanian authorities rewrite the history of their own country, that Poland and Lithuania question the status of Russia as a country who won WWII, and that US vassals question the outcome and results of the WWII.

publication/media

  • Reported in: Issue 189
  • DATE OF PUBLICATION: 04/03/2020
  • Outlet language(s) Russian
  • Countries and/or Regions discussed in the disinformation: Lithuania, Russia
  • Keywords: Historical revisionism, WWII
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Disproof

Recurring pro-Kremlin narratives portraying the White Helmets as a Western-backed terrorist proxy and, implicitly, denying the responsibility of the Assad regime for chemical attacks perpetrated during the Syrian civil war.

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Disinfo: In Sweden you get ten years prison for demonstrating without permission

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Disproof

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Disproof

Recurring narrative of warmongering as a result of the West’s meddling in the Syrian crisis. The article misquotes and misrepresents a report by Politico. The nuance of the translations from English into Bulgarian is exaggerated: Politico’s characterisation of the clash between the Department of State and the Department of Defense as an ‘internal disagreement’ and as being ‘at odds’ is rendered as a ‘bitter confrontation’ in the Bulgarian language. Also, the News Front article creates a fake statement ostensibly made by the Pentagon (i.e. that the Department of State strives to provoke World War III), which however does not appear in Politico. Moreover, the wider context of the Politico report – particularly concerning the Syrian government-led offensive in Idlib, the Turkish soldier death toll it took and Turkey’s subsequent call on its NATO allies for support, is left out.