Disinfo: Petro Poroshenko lied about his own provocation in the Kerch Strait and the US supported this lie

Summary

Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has lied about the Kerch Strait provocation. And the West has supported this lie. Poroshenko has lied about the incident in the Kerch Strait: the Russians had nothing to do with it, it is his, Poroshenko’s provocation. And every time he lies, the United States and its allies support this lie.

Disproof

Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation on Ukraine and the Azov Sea. No evidence given that the confrontation was a planned provocation by former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko. No evidence that the US supported his "lie". On 25 November 2018, border patrol boats belonging to Russia’s FSB security service seized two small Ukrainian armoured artillery vessels and their crews after shooting at them, wounding several Ukrainian servicemen. Russia argued that they were in Russian waters. However, a bilateral treaty between Russia and Ukraine, signed in 2003 and ratified by Russia in 2004, governs the use of the Kerch Strait and the Sea of Azov, which in the treaty are considered to be the “internal waters” of both Russia and Ukraine. The construction of the Kerch Bridge took place without Ukraine's consent and constitutes a violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity. It has led, in parallel with the militarisation of the Azov Sea, to tougher controls on naval traffic in the strait. The European Union stated that it expects Russia to stop the inspections. For further reporting see the Bellingcat, DFRLab and Polygraph.

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de.news-front.info (Archived)
  • Reported in: Issue 169
  • DATE OF PUBLICATION: 19/10/2019
  • Outlet language(s) German
  • Countries and/or Regions discussed in the disinformation: Ukraine, Russia
  • Keywords: Azov sea, Kerch, Crimea, Petro Poroshenko
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Disinfo: Latvia has no say in NATO thus the money spent on NATO is an occupation fee

The President of Latvia offered to share independence lessons with Zelenskyy. But Latvia is not so independent itself. If Latvia was truly independent, it would not have encouraged foreign military bases on its soil. Latvia has no say in NATO and thus, money that Latvia spends on NATO’s presence is, in fact, an occupation fee.

Oct 18, 2019
Disproof

A recurring pro-Kremlin narrative about the Baltic states' lost sovereignty and their subordination to the US and NATO NATO is an organisation of collective defence established under the Washington Treaty. NATO member states make decisions through a consensus. Consensus decision-making is a fundamental principle which has been accepted as the sole basis for decision-making in NATO since the creation of the Alliance. Thus, each member of the alliance has similar say and all of them are involved in decision-making processes. Member countries make direct and indirect contributions to the costs of running NATO and implementing its policies and activities. In 2006, NATO Defence Ministers agreed to commit a minimum of two percent of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to spendings on defence. The 2% of Latvia's GDP for defence spending is mainly focused on strengthening the national defence capability to enhance combat and response skills of the Armed Forces and National Guard. See similar disinformation cases alleging that NATO buried Latvia's and Lithuania's independence and pumped 5 billion euros from Latvia in 15 years here and here.

Disinfo: By supporting Euromaidan, the EU promoted similar protests in the EU

Western politicians must have realised by now that by praising the Ukrainian Euromaidan in 2013, they promoted similar protests in the EU itself. Unhappy EU citizens envied Ukrainians and learnt how to protest from them, particularly given that the Ukrainian coup d’état was named the Revolution of Dignity. A revolutionary fuse and potential in the EU is much larger than in the post-Soviet space. Revolutionary processes in the EU do not need external management, they spark spontaneously from time to time out of deep problems in the Roman-Germanic world. Europe continues to collapse, and the EU, in a pathetic attempt to stop this process by submitting itself to the overseas empire, is crumbling too. The fatal error of European politicians is to follow their American master and repeat what the U.S. did in Latin America in the last two centuries. “Banana republics” can be created in the centre of Europe, but given the EU’s much softer domestic structure compared to strict federal authority in the U.S., Europe will not stand it. Unhappy with the influx of migrants, Europeans rebelled and followed Kosovo and Ukraine as examples. Now the ashes of burning Catalonia are coming to Europe, which is seemingly about to collapse.

Oct 18, 2019
Disproof

This article puts forward a number of unfounded parallels and generalisations and contains recurring propaganda pro-Kremlin narratives about the Ukrainian coup d'état, lost sovereignty especially the EU's subordination to the U.S. and the EU's imminent collapse. The Catalan protests cannot be simply deduced from the events in Kosovo or Ukraine as the article suggests.The recent strike and protests erupted because of the ruling of Spain’s Supreme Court which sentenced nine Catalan pro-independence leaders to jail for sedition. In Kosovo, there was a civil war, with thousands of casualties and hundreds of thousands of refugees which ended after NATO’s 78-day air campaign against Milosevic’s regime. Since June 1999, NATO has been leading a peace-support operation in Kosovo, the Kosovo Force (KFOR), in accordance with the mandate from United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 (1999). This was followed by a decade of international administration and status negotiations. In 2008, the EU Council stressed that in view of the conflict of the 1990s and the extended period of international administration under Security Council Resolution 1244, Kosovo constituted a sui generis case. The International Court of Justice has stated that the declaration of independence of Kosovo did not violate international law. There was no coup d'état in Ukraine. The spontaneous onset of the Euromaidan protests was an organic reaction by numerous parts of the Ukrainian population to former President Yanukovych’s sudden departure from the promised Association Agreement with the European Union in November 2013. See the full debunk of this disinformation claim here. The claim about collapsing EU is not connected to real conditions in Europe. Support for the EU, as shown in the latest Eurobarometer poll, remains at historically high levels. Asked if a referendum was held tomorrow regarding the country's membership of the EU, only 10% of Spaniards said they would vote to leave the EU. See earlier disinformation cases alleging that a number of EU countries teeter on the brink of default, that Italy, Spain, Portugal, and possibly even France are in line to exit the EU, and that the logical answer from Europe to the Catalonia referendum would have been to recognise the independence of Catalonia and bomb Madrid.

Disinfo: Ukrainian autocephaly is a tool to split the Orthodox world

The purpose of the conflict between our church [the Russian Orthodox Church] and the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, over the so-called Ukrainian autocephaly, is not to acknowledge the schismatics in Ukraine. The purpose is to split the Russian world from the Greek world.

Oct 18, 2019
Disproof

A conspiracy theory, presented without any evidence. Pro-Kremlin disinformation outlets have frequently attacked the establishment of an autocephalous Ukrainian church. The Russian Orthodox church decided to break communication with Constantinople after the latter announced that it would “proceed to the granting of autocephaly to the Church of Ukraine”. On 5 January 2019, after the final decision of the synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Patriarch Bartholomew signed the tomos of autocephaly. In October 2019, the Greek Orthodox Church decided to recognise the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and supported the decision of the Patriarch of Constantinople. For more information on the tomos of the autocephaly see here.