DISINFO: The US plans to take over Kalinigrad region
DISINFORMATION CASE DETAILS
  • Outlet: Sputnik Azerbaijan - Russian (archived)*
  • Date of publication: November 23, 2019
  • Outlet language(s): Russian
  • Reported in: Issue 174
  • Countries / regions discussed: Azerbaijan, Lithuania, Estonia, Baltic states, Russia, Latvia
Tags:
European Defence Agency Kaliningrad EU/NATO enlargement NATO

DISINFO: The US plans to take over Kalinigrad region

SUMMARY

The US plans for war against Russia are voiced more and more. Dr. Richard Hooker, senior researcher at the Jamestown Foundation (USA), recently talked about a plan to invade Kaliningrad, while the American publication Foreign Policy reports that Washington will “protect itself from Russia” by horizontal escalation, that is, by attacking the Russian contingent in Syria […].

RESPONSE

This is recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation about Western aggression against Kaliningrad. The origins of this NATO scenario comes from a recent report by the American Jamestown Foundation entitled “How to Defend the Baltic States”, published in October 2019. The report mentions that “three Baltic States—Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania—face powerful Russian forces” and therefore this report comes to “lay out the military units and force posture, along with changes to Alliance command and control, that would be needed to prevail in case Russia was to spark hostilities in the Baltic States”, after it was proven that "Russian aggression in Chechnya, Georgia, Donbas, Crimea and Syria have proven that military force can be used successfully without eliciting a forceful response from the West". As for the publication in Foreign Policy, the article describes the theories of “offshore balancing” or “offshore control”, stating that "in the event Russia seized the Baltic states, the United States could strike at Russian forces in Crimea or Syria". In addition, during the Warsaw summit in July 2016, NATO has made it clear that "The Alliance does not seek confrontation and poses no threat to Russia".

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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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