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Disinfo: The SBU is today's Gestapo

Summary

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has been named Gestapo on the territory of “de jure Ukraine”. The crimes committed by the SBU are without limits. They commit atrocities both against the peaceful population of the Ukraine and the citizens of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republic. A report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) published in June 2016 found that the SBU detained and tortured people incommunicado and confirms the existence of secret SBU prisons.

Disproof

This is a new take on an already well known Russian disinformation narrative, attempting to portray Ukraine as a Nazi state. The June 2016 report by the OHCHR on human rights in Ukraine did highlight that arbitrary detentions and torture, several of them committed by the SBU, are a considerable problem. The scale of these detentions is unknown. The report notes that in early 2015, 72 people might have been detained in the Kharkiv SBU. The report also emphasizes that the majority of the incidents were committed in the conflict zone at the time. However, in line with standard Russian disinformation methods, the article fails to reveal that the same report also condemns the armed separatist groups for "killings, abductions, arbitrary detention, torture and ill-treatment in territories controlled by them. The Nazis performed a deliberate, systematic and mechanized extermination of European Jewry, political opposition and "undesirables" throughout the Nazi-occupied territories. Comparing any wrongdoings by Ukrainian authorities cannot be compared to the war crimes of the Nazi system.

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News Front - Hungarian (Archived)
  • Reported in: Issue 204
  • DATE OF PUBLICATION: 01/07/2020
  • Outlet language(s) Hungarian
  • Countries and/or Regions discussed in the disinformation: Ukraine
  • Keywords: SBU, War in Ukraine, Nazi/Fascist
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The US made an order for another cultural-historical split between Ukraine and Russia

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Jun 30, 2020
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A recurring pro-Kremlin narrative about Western Russophobia. The 'Notice of Funding Opportunity' by the US Department of State and the US Embassy in Kyiv does not contain Russophobic messages. According to the document, grant proposals include producing innovative content at the intersection of public history and digital media, highlighting Ukrainians’ personal stories of the country’s recent history. Applicants are asked to focus "on historical events frequently mischaracterised in Russian disinformation narratives and/or otherwise co-opted by malign foreign actors."

The Fourth Reich is coming

The world can find itself, in front of the “Fourth Reich”, where German law extended its authority to the entire European Union, and the German parliament and the government gained the right to bring the European Central Bank under their control.

Jun 30, 2020
Disproof

Disinformation narrative on the so-called Fourth Reich, which has according to Pro-kremlin outlets been plotted by the EU, the Anglo-Saxons and Angela Merkel. The article also contains a second disinformation narrative about Germany aiming to dominate the EU.

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George Soros finances the racial justice protests in the US with money won in Ukraine

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Jun 30, 2020
Disproof

Recurring narrative on the US protests being organised by George Soros and the Democrat party to take power away from Donald Trump illegally. There is no evidence to suggest that the protests in the US broke out through “top-down mobilisation,” or that someone is financing them. More globally, this narrative portrays any spontaneous disorders and civil uprisings in other states, very often the former Soviet republics, as Western-funded "colour revolutions". The widespread protests against racial injustice and police brutality broke out in the US after the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis on the 25 May 2020. The protests followed several high-profile incidents involving African Americans and the police, invoking debates about racism in the US. We also note the incorrect use of the word Pogrom to describe some marginal violence in the protests for racial justice. Though the situation was very tense for some days and protests spread to all 50 states of the country, military top officials and police officers worked effectively to de-escalate the situation, and demonstrations became largely peaceful after the first days.