Disinfo: Only Navalny's entourage may be interested in his death

Summary

The situation around Navalny and his hospitalization is used to put political pressure on Russia. The West staged a show with the delivery of an aircraft to transport Navalny to Germany. Only Navalny’s entourage may be interested in his death.

Disproof

Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative on Navalny poisoning. There is no evidence that Alexey Navalny's entourage would be interested in his death. The Berlin-based Cinema for Peace Foundation has arranged the transportation of Navalny to Germany for humanitarian reasons. Similar narrative as in the case of Skripal, based on conspiracies, denials and fabrication in order to cover up Russia's responsibility. Russian propaganda has long been pursuing the claims that the Skripal case was made up to justify sanctions against Russia and was an example of Russophobia. Background: On August 20 the prominent Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny fell ill during a flight and the plane was forced to make an emergency landing in Omsk, where doctors said that he was in a coma and that they were trying to save his life. Since then he has been transferred to Berlin and is receiving treatment at Berlin's Charite Hospital. On September 3, 2020, the German government published a statement that described how a military laboratory, certified by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), had found traces of the Novichok nerve agent in samples taken from Navalny. Later, German Chancellor Angela Merkel gave a special briefing. She told reporters that “There is unequivocal proof of the presence of this agent in the samples. It is therefore clear that Alexei Navalny is the victim of a crime.” The German government has briefed its allies in the European Union and NATO and plans to provide information about its findings to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). The European Union condemned the poisoning of Alexei Navalny in the strongest possible terms. Read similar cases claiming that the US hopes that the Navalny case will lead to the cancellation of Nord Stream 2, that the West will falsely accuse Russia of poisoning Navalny, as with Skripal and Litvinenko and that the West has an interest in the death of Navalny to launch a new wave of sanctions against Russia.

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  • Reported in: Issue 210
  • DATE OF PUBLICATION: 21/08/2020
  • Outlet language(s) Russian
  • Countries and/or Regions discussed in the disinformation: Germany, Russia
  • Keywords: novichok, Provocation, Alexei Navalny
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Disinfo: Ukraine starts to build airports for seasonal workers

Ukraine is starting to build airports for seasonal workers to intensify the transportation of cheap labor to Polish plantations and Hungarian factories. Lviv crossing points are already unable to manage the flow of people who want to work in Europe. It’s evident due to the huge traffic jams and congestion on the border. Therefore, yesterday at the meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers, the readiness to allocate 30 million hryvnas for the construction of a new airport in Mukachevo was announced.

Aug 20, 2020
Disproof

Recurring pro-Kremlin narrative about Ukraine as a country without any perspectives, forcing people to work in conditions similar to slavery in other countries. Kyiv has not announced the intention to build an airport in Mukachevo for seasonal workers. According to the Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine Vladyslav Krikliy, the airport in Mukachevo is under construction for the development of domestic tourism:

Now it is very important to support and develop regional airports. After all, during the pandemic, domestic tourism will remain a priority. Therefore, we, in particular, are preparing to build an airport in Mukachevo. The emergence of a new airport is important for the development of aviation infrastructure in Transcarpathia.

Disinfo: British will be present in the Black Sea to arrange a zone of tension for Russia

The so-called Ukrainian military fleet, which is scrap metal, suddenly conducts joint exercises with Great Britain. This means that the Ukrainian fleet is used as a cover factor, because it is impossible to practice any effective military actions with it due to the lack of necessary ships and systems, management, etc. Therefore, the British, hiding behind Ukraine, will be present in the Black Sea, on the one hand, to arrange a zone of tension for Russia, and on the other, in pursuit of goals that will never be actually announced. Ukraine “was made anti-Russian” in order to use it in such cases.

Aug 20, 2020
Disproof

This is a recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the West and NATO allegedly pursuing a belligerent and hostile agenda against Russia. Russia considers any military exercises in Europe as provocative and dangerous. Every nation has the right to conduct exercises, but it is important that they are conducted transparently and in line with international obligations. NATO conducts dozens of military exercises in different countries and they are not directed against Russia. The UK will lead a multinational Maritime Training Initiative for the Ukrainian Navy, boosting their ability to combat threats in the Black Sea. As Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has confirmed: "Maritime Training Initiative will enable even closer collaboration with the NATO Alliance and Armed Forces around the world, and allows us to build on Ukraine’s new NATO Enhanced Opportunities Partner status." Ukraine lost much of its Navy capability during Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 and Ukraine has since continued to face a rising number of threats in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. In response, Ukraine has been rebuilding its Navy to protect its economic interests and its right to freedom of navigation. The Maritime Training Initiative will boost that effort, enabling them to uphold the rules based international order and European security in the region on which the UK’s own security depends. The new initiative will follow the resumption of Operation Orbital, the UK’s training mission to Ukraine. Since the training mission began in 2015, British troops have trained over 18,000 members of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF). Their efforts have made a real difference and saved lives as Ukraine faces down Russian aggression and threats to its sovereignty. Last year the Defence Secretary extended Operation Orbital until 2023.

Disinfo: EU is creating a poverty belt in the East of the EU, to secure access to cheap labour

The EU is creating a poverty belt in its east, consisting of Ukraine, the Baltic States and now Belarus, in order to secure access to cheap labour and sales markets. It has been the economic survival model of the Baltic States for years to export low-wage labour to other EU countries, it has become the business model of Ukraine and it will also become the model of Belarus. When Belarus turns to the EU and the West, that is what will follow – the complete exploitation of the country, a wave of industrial bankruptcies, the decay of the infrastructure, in short: the complete economic decline in Belarus. This is what Belarus, unlike Russia, was largely spared of in the nineties of the last century.

Aug 20, 2020
Disproof

A recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about Belarus, the West and the EU The Protests in Belarus erupted after thousands of people took to the streets to contest the results of the Presidential elections in Belarus, which are considered fraudulent by a large part of society. This claim about the EU exploiting countries to its east is consistent with the recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives about a disastrous horror scenario for the economy in Belarus, in case Belarus should reorientate itself geo-politically towards the West. The EU is not interested in creating a poverty belt in its East, nor in securing access to cheap labour in the Baltics, Ukraine or Belarus. It is a recycled recurrent narrative for EaP-states, that the West or the IMF wants to destroy the Ukrainian economy and to turn Ukrainians into the cheap labour force. The narrative portrays the economic situation of Ukraine as disastrous and alleging that Belarus' future is only possible in union with Russia. Read earlier disinformation cases alleging that Poland is preparing Euromaidan scenario for Belarus, that the West's only interest in Belarus is to make it anti-Russian, that Belarus moves towards complete colonisation by the West, and that Germany created the euro to colonise countries that couldn’t be conquered militarily.