DISINFO: The Liberals only want the protests for getting nice pictures for foreign newspapers
DISINFORMATION CASE DETAILS
  • Outlet: riafan.ru (archived)*
  • Date of publication: January 31, 2021
  • Outlet language(s): Russian
  • Reported in: Issue 229
  • Countries / regions discussed: Russia
Tags:
West Alexei Navalny Protest Media

DISINFO: The Liberals only want the protests for getting nice pictures for foreign newspapers

SUMMARY

Navalny’s supporters need people to be detained in order to fight for their release. They are really wasting peoples’ lives.

The most disgusting part is that first and foremost they need nice pictures for the covers of western and Russian liberal newspapers. This is the really sick part of all this.

RESPONSE

An unfounded claim presented without evidence. This message is consistent with pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives that protests, disorders and civil uprisings are never manifestations of popular discontent but are "colour revolutions" directed and funded by Western intelligence services or other Western actors in order to destabilise targeted foreign states and bring about regime change(opens in a new tab). And the West is always an aggressive actor constantly preparing new coups (opens in a new tab)and colour revolutions(opens in a new tab) in post-Soviet states. This narrative has been applied, among others, to the Arab Spring revolts, Euromaidan(opens in a new tab) in Ukraine, protests in Catalonia(opens in a new tab), Venezuela(opens in a new tab), Georgia(opens in a new tab), and Belarus(opens in a new tab).

The 2021 Russian protests(opens in a new tab) began on 23 January 2021 in support of the arrested opposition leader Alexei Navalny and as a reaction to the investigation Putin's Palace(opens in a new tab). The rallies — from Russia’s Far East to central Moscow — came less than a week after Navalny returned from Germany, where he recovered from a nerve agent poisoning in August during a trip to Siberia. Navalny was arrested shortly after stepping off the plane. More than 3,300 people were arrested in protests spanning nearly 70 cities and towns across Russia(opens in a new tab).

The EU has condemned mass detentions and police brutality during the protests in Russia and called for immediate release of Mr. Navalny.

See other similar cases claiming that The neo-liberal forces behind Navalny will intensify their attempts to destroy Russia(opens in a new tab), or that The West is sending Navalny back to Russia to prevent him from becoming irrelevant(opens in a new tab).

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Disclaimer

Cases in the EUvsDisinfo database focus on messages in the international information space that are identified as providing a partial, distorted, or false depiction of reality and spread key pro-Kremlin messages. This does not necessarily imply, however, that a given outlet is linked to the Kremlin or editorially pro-Kremlin, or that it has intentionally sought to disinform. EUvsDisinfo publications do not represent an official EU position, as the information and opinions expressed are based on media reporting and analysis of the East Stratcom Task Force.

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