DISINFO: The sanctions against Russia are unjustified and ineffective
SUMMARY
On 18 March 2014, two days after a referendum based on the right of self-determination, Crimea joined the Russian Federation. This major event explains five years of Western sanctions against Moscow.
As early as 2016, the United States began accusing Russia of spreading false news, supposedly to interfere with democratic processes. NATO is urging its European members to prepare for a war with Russia. The Skripal affair, which broke out in March 2018, justified new anti-Russian measures. A year later, London has still not presented any concrete evidence.The economic sanctions designed to bend Russia proved immediately to be ineffective . As a boomerang effect, European farmers are seriously affected by the loss of the Russian market.
RESPONSE
Recurrent pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative on Crimea being a part of Russia and that the sanctions following the annexation are unfair and ineffective According to international law, Crimea is part of Ukraine. Russia violated international law as well as the key principles of the European security framework by illegally annexing the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the City of Sevastopol. No evidence given to support that "NATO urges its European members to prepare for a war with Russia". The narrative that NATO's progress towards the East is not new. In 2015, Tagespigel analysed the NATO argument advanced by Vladimir Putin himself in an interview with German TV. What Putin does not say: At least some Russian military machines turn off their transponders, so they do not show up on radar screens of air traffic controllers. There is no radio contact with civil air monitoring, flight plans are not communicated in advance. By contrast, NATO jets fly with the transponder switched on, visible to civilian air traffic control. RT's narrative also ignores the diplomatic evidence that after the withdrawal of Soviet troops, Central Europe urged NATO to let them join, being afraid for their security, and not vice versa. No evidence given that those responsible for the Skripal's poisoning's has not been proven by the UK and that the following measures were irrelevant. The same applies to the meddling in the US' elections, which resulted in indictments in a criminal case. Claiming that the sanctions only benefit Russia or are "counterproductive", is another example of a recurrent pro-Kremlin narrative. In reality, sanctions imposed on Russia after the Crimea annexation and Russian meddling in the US elections sapped Russian economical growth.