Disinfo: Russia faces an aggressive policy aimed weakening and controlling it

Summary

A targeted information campaign is being waged against Russia with categorical and unfounded accusations on a number of issues. Moreover, even all sorts of absurd and anecdotal conspiracy theories are being used. There are, for example, attempts to question Russia’s recent achievements in the field of medicine, in the fight against coronavirus.

Russia is facing the so-called policy of containment. It is facing a consistent and aggressive policy aimed at disrupting the country's development and creating problems around it. This is being done to "ultimately weaken Russia and put it under external control," as is already happening in some countries in the post-Soviet space, stated Putin.

Disproof

Disinformation framing Russia as the ultimate target of international events, based on several recurrent pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives about Russia being encircled and an information war being waged against it.

While aware of pro-Kremlin disinformation campaigns, the West is trying to keep open channels of communications and cooperation with Russia. For instance, NATO as the Western organisation created cooperation bodies – the Permanent Joint Council and the NATO-Russia Council – to embody its relationship with Russia. It also invited Russia to cooperate on missile defence. The Warsaw Summit Communique 2016 describes NATO's official policy towards Russia: "The Alliance does not seek confrontation and poses no threat to Russia. But we cannot, and will not, compromise on the principles on which our Alliance and security in Europe and North America rest."

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, in line with five guiding principles of relations with Russia.

See similar disinformation claims that the EU wants to make Russia a semi-colony to dictate its foregn and domestic policy; that NATO and the EU want to contain and destabilise Russia through Navalny and the “opposition”; that the West is hysterical about interfering in Russia through the Navalny case; that the US wants to meddle in Russian internal affairs; and that the West collectively develops a hostile attitude towards Russia.

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publication/media

sputnik-abkhazia.ru (Archived)
sputnik-georgia.com (Archived)
  • Reported in: Issue 235
  • DATE OF PUBLICATION: 24/02/2021
  • Article language(s) Russian, Georgian
  • Countries and/or Regions discussed in the disinformation: Russia
  • Keywords: Destabilising Russia, Encircling Russia, Information war
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Disinfo: Poland whitewashes Hitler by allowing the publication of “Mein Kampf”

The statement of the publishers of the “Mein Kampf. Critical Edition” about the low number of copies of this book is a marketing trick, encouraging people to a quick buy. They want to put as many “Mein Kampf” books on the Poles' tables as possible. After several decades of brainwashing of the Poles, whitewashing of the Nazi crimes and defamation of the USSR, the Polish society became prepared for the publication of this book.

In Poland, they implement a well-planned action of whitewashing Hitler and his Army’s actions. The legal publishing of this book in Poland and Germany means that such phenomena as Fascism and Nazism are not dying but only wait for their time to come.

Feb 23, 2021
Disproof

A recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative casting Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic States as countries that do not respect the history of WWII and its heroes (often, accusing them of supporting the Nazi ideology).

In January 2021, a large Polish publishing house “Bellona” published the book “Mein Kampf. Critical Edition”. This book was written and translated by a Polish historian and political scientist Dr Eugeniusz Król, a specialist on the history of National-Socialist propaganda in Germany. The book presents a scientific overview of the ''Mein Kampf'', containing its Polish translation with numerous historical comments. According to the words of Dr Król, at the present moment, the book is a warning to next generations about the risk of a quick dismantling of a democratic system and the emergence of totalitarianism, as it happened in Germany in the 1930s. The editors and the author of the book underline the anti-Nazi and anti-totalitarian character of their publication. In other words, the publication of the Critical Edition of the ''Mein Kampf'' in Poland has purely scientific, historical and anti-Nazi character.

Disinfo: Russo-Georgian war was openly provoked by Washington's protégé Saakashvili

The logic of US foreign policy actions in the region could be observed when the US special services were "withdrawing" Georgia from the zone of Russian influence. After all, the war on 08.08.08 (in South Ossetia) was openly provoked by Washington's protégé Saakashvili, thereby rudely cutting off contacts with the superpower, whose influence even after the "Rose Revolution" was quite large.

Feb 23, 2021
Disproof

A recurring pro-Kremlin narrative trying to deny any role for Russia, blaming Georgia and its political leadership for the Russo-Georgian war of 2008 which resulted in the further occupation of South Ossetia and Abkhazia by additional military forces from Russia.

Georgia is a sovereign country attacked by Russia in 2008. Many international organisations condemned the further occupation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, see e.g. the CSCE statement here and the European Parliament's declaration.

Disinfo: The West wants to play the role of Human Rights supervisor to distract attention from its problems

The ambition of the Western countries to play a role of an international supervisor and a world mentor in the situation with Human Rights in other countries looks like a deliberate tactic carried out to distract attention from their own problems. The violations of Human Rights in Poland, Lithuania, Czechia and many other European countries can be presented for hours.

Feb 23, 2021
Disproof

Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the intense violation of Human Rights in the West – it promotes the idea that Western countries do not have any position or moral right to criticise Russia, China and other states for the situation with Human Rights.

The claim that the Western countries play the role of an 'international supervisor' in the sphere of Human Rights in order to distract attention from their own problems is untrue.