Disinfo: Rehabilitation of German Nazism in the Baltic countries and Ukraine

Summary

There are attempts to rehabilitate Hitler and Nazism in the Baltic countries and Ukraine. Europe ignores this.

Disproof

The article offers no evidence for the claim. Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation attempting to link Ukraine and the Baltic countries with Nazism. euvsdisinfo.eu/disinformation-cases/?text=&disinfo_issue=&disinfo_keywords%5B%5D=77101&date=, The Nazi ideology and the EU are based on opposite values ​​and principles. For further debunking see here euvsdisinfo.eu/report/the-eu-is-a-nazi-project-the-plan-to-form-the-eu-was-created-within-nazi-germany/,

publication/media

  • Reported in: Issue 120
  • DATE OF PUBLICATION: 26/09/2018
  • Outlet language(s) Russian
  • Countries and/or Regions discussed in the disinformation: Baltic states, Ukraine
  • Keywords: Adolf Hitler, Baltic states, Nazi/Fascist
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Disinfo: The West imposed sanctions against Russia to control its natural resources

“We live in the country with the largest territory in the world. The richest natural resources […] Sanctions have been imposed with the aim to put our resources under the control of foreign businessmen”, said Vladislav Ginko, lecturer of the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration under the President of the Russian Federation.

Disproof

No evidence given. Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation on sanctions. Since March 2014, the EU has progressively imposed restrictive measures against Russia. The measures were adopted in response to the illegal annexation of Crimea and the deliberate destabilisation of Ukraine.

Disinfo: Belgium installed a Waffen-SS memorial, violating the Nuremberg tribunal's decisions

A Waffen-SS memorial has been installed in Belgium, which violated the Nuremberg tribunal’s decisions.

Disproof

Recurring pro-Kremlin narrative about Europe and Nazism. Belgium has adopted a ‘Holocaust denial law’ that bans any public Holocaust denials. Specifically, the law makes it illegal to publicly ‘deny, play down, justify or approve of the genocide committed by the German National Socialist regime during the Second World War’. A memorial called "Monument to Freedom" is planned to be installed by the Latvian sculptor Kristaps Gulbis in the Belgian commune Zedelgem. Gulbis stated that his monument will commemorate the Latvian soldiers who were POWs in the Zedelgem camp during the winter of 1945/46. Latvian POWs in Zedelgem were released during 1946.

Disinfo: Europe is supporting Nazism to increase Russophobia

The Nazism and Fascism of the 1930s and today’s Europe’ support of pro-Nazi movements and parties in the Baltics and Ukraine have in common one thing: targeting the Soviet Union and Russia, and waging all kind of Russophobia. It is supported actively or passively by the West.

Disproof

Recurring pro-Kremlin narrative on the West as Russophobic and Nazi. euvsdisinfo.eu/disinformation-cases/?text=Russophobia&disinfo_issue=&date=, euvsdisinfo.eu/the-russophobia-myth-appealing-to-the-lowest-feelings/, euvsdisinfo.eu/disinformation-cases/?text=&disinfo_issue=&disinfo_keywords%5B%5D=77101&date=,

  • There was in fact a clear record of strong cooperation between the EU and Russia, dating back to 1994, when the two sides negotiated a Partnership and Cooperation Agreement. Russia was identified as a strategic partner for the EU, and was the only country with which the EU held summits not once, but twice a year. A new EU-Russia agreement was being negotiated up until 2014, at which point talks were unfortunately suspended due to Russia's involvement in the Ukraine conflict. Negotiations were also in train on visa facilitation. There was also cooperation between the EU and Russia on a number of foreign policy issues, some of which continues to this day. The EU and its Member States have maintained a clear policy of reaching out to Russian society and youth, mainly through the Erasmus+ student exchange programme and other people to people contacts.

  • NATO consistently worked hard to build a cooperative relationship with Russia since the early 1990s, through the Partnership for Peace and creation of a NATO-Russia Council, and specific cooperation in the Western Balkans on and issues like counter-narcotics and counter-terrorism. In fact, as NATO points out, no other NATO partner has been offered a comparable relationship, nor a similarly comprehensive institutional framework: http://bit.ly/2e0TZnG.

  • In 1997, Russia was invited to join the G7 group of major advanced economies in the world, thus forming the G8. (At the time, Russia ranked 14th to 17th in the list of countries according to GDP: http://bit.ly/2dWb51l; http://bit.ly/2ejhOpw; http://bit.ly/2dqu4jQ). In 2006, President Putin hosted the G8 summit in Saint Petersburg. Russia's membership of the G8 was suspended in 2014 because of its illegal annexation of Crimea.

  • Russia joined the Council of Europe, the continent's leading human rights organisation, in 1996.