Disinfo: NATO illegally expanded to the borders of Russia

Summary

Russia was never an aggressor. It was always attacked by the West. […] In 1990 Germany was reunited, but NATO illegally expanded to the borders of Russia. Now the Cordon Sanitaire against Russia is back. Russia’s security interests must always be considered by the West.

Disproof

This is a recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the West encircling Russia via NATO. The NATO enlargement was not "illegal".

NATO Allies take decisions by consensus and these are recorded. There is no record of any such decision having been taken by NATO. Even if there was a personal assurance from an individual leader, it could not replace Alliance consensus and does not constitute a formal NATO agreement. This promise was never made, as confirmed by Mikhail Gorbachev, then-president of the Soviet Union.

Central and Eastern European countries began seeking NATO membership in the early 1990s. NATO actively sought to create a cooperative environment that was conducive to enlargement while simultaneously building special relations with Russia.

NATO does not "expand" in the imperialistic sense described by pro-Kremlin media. Rather, it considers the applications of candidate countries who want to join the alliance based on their own national will. As such, NATO enlargement is not directed against Russia. NATO's "Open Door Policy" is based on Article 10 of the Alliance's founding document, the North Atlantic Treaty (1949). The Treaty states that NATO membership is open to any "European state in a position to further the principles of this Treaty and to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area". Every sovereign nation has the right to choose its own security arrangements. This is a fundamental principle of European security and one to which Russia has also subscribed.

For similar cases, see here and here.

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publication/media

RT Germany (Archived)

Reported in: Issue 196
DATE OF PUBLICATION: 08/05/2020
Language/target audience: German
Country: Russia
Keywords: West, EU/NATO enlargement, NATO

White Helmets are frank falsifiers

The White Helmets are still doing everything they can to prove to the international community that Syrian President Bashar Assad is poisoning his people with either bleach or sarin-zaman-V-gases. And Washington itself is doing everything possible to make people believe these frank falsifiers. Because [the US] needs to throw Assad out at any cost.

May 09, 2020

Disproof

This is a recurring disinformation narrative deflecting blame for chemical attacks away from the Assad regime. It also aims to discredit the OPCW in addition to labelling the White Helmets as terrorists or as accomplices of terrorist organisations by staging and/or perpetrating chemical attacks. These claims are not supported by evidence.

The UN-OPCW Joint Investigative Mechanism found Syria’s Government responsible for the April 2017 attack in Khan Shaykhun. On April 2018, Russia vetoed a US-drafted UN Security Council resolution that would have created a new inquiry to ascertain responsibility for chemical weapons attacks in Syria. In June 2018, the OPCW members granted it the power to assign responsibility for chemical attacks.

COVID-19 is an ordinary flu epidemic, hysteria is caused by media and politics

If we had tested people for corona last year, the same would have happened now. Corona is a completely ordinary kind of flu epidemic, which is completely exaggerated and the big question that all journalists should be interested in – why is that actually the case? The current approach of the Austrian government is fascistic and totalitarian. After all, one is not allowed to have any contradictory opinion. The current crisis is a product of hysteria caused by media and politics.

May 09, 2020

Disproof

An unfounded conspiracy theory, that COVID-19 is a normal flu, sharing a recurrent narrative about the COVID-19 outbreak. It also aims to discredit actions taken by the WHO and individual countries, like in this case Austria, to stop the spread of the disease, describing its measures as fascistic and totalitarian.

COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organisation on 11 March, acknowledging that the virus had become a global phenomenon. Before that date, the situation was being described as an epidemic, illustrating that the virus had already spread to many people, and many communities, at the same time. As of 9th May, the total number of COVID-19 cases detected had passed 3.8 million.

To assign equal responsibility for the outbreak of WWII to Nazi Germany and the USSR is falsification

Outside of logic, beyond good and evil, there are pseudo-historians and politicians who create fakes, claiming that the Soviet Union, along with fascist Germany, was the initiator of WWII. A desire to assign equal responsibility for the outbreak of WWII to Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union is outright falsification and unacceptable. After all, then all modern European borders that were outlined precisely as a result of the defeat of Nazi Germany will be questioned. Is that what Europeans want? And, as a result, the ideology of fascism and Nazism became just one of the political approaches? This is dangerous, first of all, for the Western countries themselves.

May 09, 2020

Disproof

This message is part of the Kremlin’s policy of historical revisionism and an attempt to erode the disastrous historical role of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. This article also contained another disinformation message about the White Helmets.

Both Nazi Germany and the Stalinist USSR were harsh totalitarian regimes, which directly caused the deaths of tens of millions of people. These two regimes are mutually responsible for the outbreak of WWII. The European Parliament resolution on the importance of European remembrance for the future of Europe stressed the fact that WWII was an immediate result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The resolution is aimed at the promotion of historical remembrance about WWII and the condemnation of totalitarian ideologies.