Disinfo: Territories of Donbas controlled by Ukraine are under Ukrainian occupation

Summary

[Ukraine] has captured parts of DNR and LNR. (…) Let’s not pretend! Ukraine has seized these territories; Ukraine controls them by using force.

Disproof

Pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative claiming that Ukraine started a war in Donbas and occupied the territories of the so-called “DNR” and “LNR”. The territories of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts (regions) are internationally recognised parts of Ukraine. The EU has on numerous times mentioned that Ukraine’s borders must be respected. On 27 March 2014, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 68/262 confirming Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Moreover, Russia had also pledged to respect the borders of Crimea in the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 and in the Ukraine-Russia Friendship Treaty of 1997.

publication/media

  • Reported in: Issue 176
  • DATE OF PUBLICATION: 08/12/2019
  • Outlet language(s) Russian
  • Countries and/or Regions discussed in the disinformation: Ukraine
  • Keywords: Eastern Ukraine, Donbas, War in Ukraine
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Disinfo: Euromaidan was a coup d’état supported by the US

The Euromaidan was a coup d’état supported by the US. Instead of stability it generated chaos, labeled as “democracy”.

Disproof

Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative depicting the 2013-14 protests in Kyiv as a coup d’état orchestrated by the West. There was no coup d’état in Ukraine. The onset of the Euromaidan protests was a spontaneous and endogenous reaction by numerous segments of the Ukrainian population to former President Yanukovych’s sudden withdrawal from the promised Association Agreement with the European Union in November 2013. The protesters’ demands included constitutional reform, a stronger role for parliament, the formation of a government of national unity, an end to corruption, early presidential elections and an end to violence. Read a similar case claiming that the West organised the Maidan coup in order to transform Ukraine into an anti-Russian state

Disinfo: In pursuit of 4th Reich, Anglo-Saxons organised Russian Civil War and Hong Kong protests

A better look allows us to discern the natural flow of events from the subversive propaganda of Americans and Anglo-Saxons who claim world domination, a sort of Fourth thousand-year Reich. Since China is not willing to accept American world order and promotes an alternative model for globalisation, it should experience a colour revolution. The US does not have the guts to arrange it in Beijing, so Hong Kong was burnt first, a peripheral China with a large concentration of US secret services. The situation is presented as if the protests are organised by ordinary disgruntled citizens rather than Washington’s puppeteers. Without Western meddling, neither the Russian Civil War a hundred years ago nor the protests in Hong Kong would have happened.

Disproof

This is a conspiracy theory which presents many social and political events in various countries as a consequence of Western instigated provocations against Russia and China. and consistent with recurring pro-Kremlin narratives about the Nazi-like West, the US or West funding the Hong Kong’ protests, and the West's anti-Russian activities. Pro-Kremlin media have long used the narrative about anti-government protests being funded by the US. Examples include colour revolutions in post-Soviet states, the “Arab Spring” revolts, and Ukraine's Euromaidan in 2014. They also often use the accusation of Nazism as explained in our past analysis Nazi east, Nazi west, Nazi over the cuckoo's nest. The protests in Hong Kong started in June 2019 over a controversial extradition law, but have expanded to call for Hong Kong's leader to step down, an inquiry into alleged police brutality, for those who have been arrested to be released and greater democratic freedoms. When it comes to the Russian Civil War of 1917-1922, British, French and American units were sent to Russian ports to support White forces, but they rarely directly engaged the Bolsheviks, and the War had a number of more important domestic roots, foremost, widespread resistance to the new Bolshevik order. See earlier disinformation cases alleging that the US is like 4th Reich, that the Hong Kong protests are the West’s revenge on China for not waging war against Russia, that the goal of the US global “Anaconda” strategy is to limit the living space of geopolitical opponents, and that the West's objective is to encircle Russia entirely thanks to the "Anaconda ring" and "Great Turan" doctrines.

Disinfo: Germany fabricating new "Skripal case" ahead of Normandy summit

Germany is fabricating a new “Skripal case”. The scandalous murder which happened back in August was inflated into an international scandal only now, ahead of the very important Normandy summit. And here, as with the cases of the Skripals and the shot down Boeing, state agencies showed themselves off. Their conclusions can be calculated in advance – they accuse Russia in the same manner.

Disproof

Recurring pro-Kremlin narrative that there is no proof behind accusations against Russia. Consistent with the narrative on Russophobia. Amid the murder of Georgian citizen Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, Germany expelled two Russian diplomats. Germany's federal prosecutor said that "there are sufficient factual grounds to suggest that the killing... was carried out either on behalf of state agencies of the Russian Federation or those of the Autonomous Chechen Republic, as part of the Russian Federation." Bellingcat, together with the Insider and Spiegel, identified the Berlin bicycle assassin as Vadim Nikolaevich Krasikov who entered France and then Germany under the fake identity of Vadim Sokolov. Krasikov was suspected of the murder of Russian businessman in 2013 but Russia withdrew the Interpol warrant. See similar narratives on Skripal and MH17 cases.