Disinfo: Russia’s nuclear deployment to Belarus is a response to NATO expansionism

Summary

Russia’s deployment of nuclear armament to Belarus can be seen as Moscow’s response to NATO’s expansionism of the last 30 years towards the borders of the Eurasian country.

Disproof

Pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about NATO and encircled Russia.

Framing the attempts to deploy nuclear weapons in Belarus as a “response to NATO expansionism” is a prefabricated argument to justify Russia’s nuclear warmongering, part of a wider disinformation campaign aiming at coercing Western nations to cease aid to Ukraine for its self-defence against Russian aggression.

Although Vladimir Putin stated on 25 March 2023 that Russia will station nuclear weapons on Belarusian facilities whose construction will be ready by 1 July -an allegation repeated afterwards by other Russian and Belarusian officials-, experts are very sceptic about the feasibility of this move, as there is no indication of any step taken in this regard.

See other examples of similar disinformation narratives in our database, such as claims that NATO destroyed trust in the new START treaty, that Western leaders’ nuclear rhetoric is becoming increasingly ferocious, that Ukraine asked NATO for preemptive nuclear strikes against Russia, or that Russia doesn’t threaten anyone with nuclear weapons.

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sputniknews.lat (Archived)
  • Reported in: Issue 330
  • DATE OF PUBLICATION: 03/04/2023
  • Article language(s) Spanish
  • Countries and/or Regions discussed in the disinformation: Russia, Belarus, US, UK, EU, Canada
  • Keywords: NATO, EU/NATO enlargement, Nuclear issues, Union State of Belarus and Russia
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This disinformation claim was broadcast on the date mentioned above. Due to the EU decisions  to temporarily restrict the spread and dissemination of RT, Sputnik and other instruments used to manipulate information and promote disinformation about the invasion of Ukraine inside the EU, access to the link may not work inside the EU.
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Disinfo: Zelenskyy will sacrifice his people to save himself

The resistance in Artyomovsk was given extraordinary importance, and it is directly related to the financing of Ukraine by NATO and EU countries. Zelenskyy admits that Ukraine on its own, without Western support, is worth nothing, neither as a state nor as a military power. Therefore, Zelenskyy will continue to sacrifice his people to save himself and prove to the Americans that Ukraine is good for them.

Mar 31, 2023
Disproof

This is a recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation claim about Ukraine's lost sovereignty.

Ukraine is a sovereign and independent state; it is not fighting on behalf of any foreign government or organisation, neither is its president fighting a war against the will of the Ukrainian people to prove his worth to external actors. Ukraine was forced into this situation and is acting in self defence against the Russian invasion, as it is its right enshrined in the UN Charter .

Disinfo: The US is developing climate weapons against Russia

The US is looking for climate weapons against Russia: Volcanic winter could turn into a nightmare for the planet. The US is developing ways to manage the climate to fight Russia. The White House and the US Congress have adopted a five-year plan for "climate interventions", which provides creation of climate control technologies. One of the goals is to combat "the emerging dominance of Russia in agriculture".

Mar 31, 2023
Disproof

This is a conspiracy theory. The document referred to in it is the US' White House "Request for Input to a Five-Year Plan for Research on Climate Intervention" and there is no indication in the document that supports the conspiratorial notion that the US is 'managing the climate to fight Russia'

In the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), in coordination with relevant Federal agencies, was directed by Congress to develop a five-year “scientific assessment of solar and other rapid climate interventions in the context of near-term climate risks and hazards",

Disinfo: The myth of Holodomor was created by Russophobic Ukrainians to demonize Russia

The decision of the French National Assembly to vote on March 28 on a resolution describing the "Holodomor" as genocide is unfounded and provocative. The notion of the Holodomor is a politico-ideological creature devised by ultranationalist and Russophobic Ukrainian forces to demonise Russia and attract support from the international community.

[....] at that time the great famine affected not only Ukraine, but also other agricultural regions of the USSR, including the North Caucasus, the middle and lower Volga, part considerable extent of the Central Chernozem Oblast [region], Kazakhstan, Western Siberia and the Southern Urals. Millions of Soviet citizens fell victim of it.

Mar 31, 2023
Disproof

This is a recurring Kremlin negation of the Holodomor in Ukraine using the concept of Russophobia to dismiss it.

The Holodomor was an man-made famine deliberately caused by Stalin with the aim of removing a perceived Ukrainian threat to the Soviet regime. The Soviet state took away livestock, crops and seeds from the peasants claiming they had "plundered" state property. The Soviet law on the seizure of food from peasants was adopted in 1932 and is known as the "Five Spikelet Law". Anyone who gathered several ears of wheat on the collective farm field was a culprit of "theft of state property". The punishment for theft of kolkhoz or cooperative property was the death sentence. This law was personally attributed to Joseph Stalin.