Disinfo: NATO mission has ended with the dissolution of the USSR

Summary

What we are waiting to hear from the American president is ambitious plans to dismantle NATO, whose mission has effectively ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact.

Disproof

Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives about the need to dismantle NATO after the Soviet Union ceased to exist.

NATO’s objectives are set out in the 1949 Washington Treaty which forms the legal basis of the alliance. The treaty states that parties “are resolved to unite their efforts for collective defence and for the preservation of peace and security”.

Since then, more countries have chosen to join NATO. The Alliance has taken on new missions and adapted to new challenges, all the while sticking to its fundamental principles of security, collective defence, and decision-making by consensus.

Twice since the end of the Cold War, NATO has adopted new Strategic Concepts (in 1999 and 2010), adapting to new realities. Thus, rather than being disbanded, NATO adapted, and continues to change, to live up to the needs and expectations of Allies, and to promote their shared vision of a Europe whole, free and at peace.

The Alliance maintained its collective defence but also stepped up to manage conflicts beyond its territory, with missions in the Balkans and, following 9/11, in Afghanistan. NATO Allies also face other threats, including acts of terrorism in their own streets and cyber-attacks, while supporting efforts against COVID-19.

See more cases in our database with claims that NATO promised not to expand further east; or that NATO wants to create an anti-Russian "belt"; or that NATO forgot all the previously existing agreements; or that NATO is provoking a conflict in the Black Sea; or that NATO forces its agenda on Russia.

This article contained another case claiming that the West and the US should stop coordinating with Daesh and Al-Qaeda

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Disinfo: Russia fired warning shots against the British warship breaching its border

Last June, Russia announced that the forces of the Black Sea Fleet and Russian border guards had fired warning shots after a British warship breached the country's border off the coast of Crimea.

The Russian defence confirmed that the British destroyer Defender had breached the country's borders and infiltrated Russian waters for a distance of three kilometres near Cape Fiolent on the southern Crimean coast. But after warning shots were fired at it from the sea and the air, it quickly left Russian waters.

Disproof

Recurrent pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the HMS Defender incident near the Crimean coast of Ukraine on 23 June 2021. The article’s message is also consistent with pro-Kremlin narratives about the illegal annexation of Crimea.

On 23 June, the British warship HMS Defender was in transit on a commonly followed route using an internationally recognised traffic separation corridor in the Black Sea inside Ukrainian territorial waters to Georgia, where the destroyer was due to dock.

Disinfo: HMS Defender deliberately entered Russian territorial waters violating Russia’s laws

HMS Defender deliberately entered Russian territorial waters in violation of Russia's laws. The British wanted to demonstrate that these are Ukrainian waters, but this does not correspond to the facts.

Disproof

Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the June 2021 HMS Defender warship incident and about the current status of Crimea.

On 23 June 2021, the British warship HMS Defender was in transit on a commonly followed route in the Black Sea from the port of Odesa in Ukraine to Georgia, where the destroyer was due to dock. Russia claimed that the transit of the British ship 12 miles off the Crimean coast was deliberate trespassing of its territorial waters.

Disinfo: Ukraine became a poor, corrupt, failed state controlled by the West

Observing all these seven years the impoverishment of the inhabitants of Ukraine, puppet Presidents living on the "orders" of overseas suzerains, the country's rapid slide into an economic abyss and unprecedented rampant corruption in power, the people of Donbas did not regret their decision for a minute.

Disproof

Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives about Ukrainian statehood and the alleged disintegration of Ukraine.

Present-day Ukraine has been on the world map since 1991 when the Soviet Union disintegrated. It has elected six presidents since then and changed parties in government several times which illustrates political diversity and democratic dynamics even during economic hardship in the wake of Russian aggression in 2014. Ukraine's Western partners have been providing it with financial and technical assistance.