Disinfo: The West dreams of tearing Belarus apart from Russia and to organise a Ukraine-like scenario

Summary

All talk about Belarus’ peaceful mission in Europe or about European Belarus are good chances for the West to tear Belarus apart from Russia and to wage a geopolitical war against Russia from Belarusian territory. The US and EU dream about an anti-Russian scenario in Belarus, similar to the one organised in Ukraine in 2014.

Disproof

This message is a conspiracy which is consistent with recurring pro-Kremlin narratives about West-staged colour revolution in Ukraine and plans to do so in Belarus, about Western aggressiveness towards Belarus and Russia, and Western attempts to disrupt Belarusian-Russian relations. The EU has never staged, nor does it intend to stage, a colour revolution in Belarus or any other country. Nothing in the bilateral paths of cooperation suggests that the EU's goal is to make Belarus an anti-Russian country as alleged. Read more about the relations between the EU and Belarus here. See earlier disinformation cases alleging that the US and NATO see Belarus only as part of an anti-Russia bastion, the West's only interest in Belarus is to make it anti-Russian, that the EU plans to take over Russia and to ruin Belarus just as it did to Ukraine, and that the West aims at cultivating anti-Russian sentiments in Belarus.

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teleskop-by.org (Archived)
  • Reported in: Issue 171
  • DATE OF PUBLICATION: 30/10/2019
  • Outlet language(s) Russian
  • Countries and/or Regions discussed in the disinformation: Belarus, Ukraine, Russia
  • Keywords: Union State of Belarus and Russia, West, Anti-Russian, European Union, Colour revolutions, Conspiracy theory, Euromaidan
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Disinfo: Civilians in the Finnish concentration camps in Carelia are victims of genocide

Civilians in the Finnish concentration camps in Russia’s Carelia during WWII are victims of genocide and should ask for a compensation from Finnish authorities.

Oct 29, 2019
Disproof

Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation message focusing on Finland and Russia's Karelia during the WWII. This time the topic peaked on pro-Kremlin media's agenda in October 2019 after Russia's Security Service FSB released "secret documents" about the conditions in the Finnish camps. The researchers have studied the treatment of civilians detained in the Finnish camps established in the Finnish-occupied Soviet Karelia in WWII, and nothing suggests Finns aimed at a genocide of Russians or Slavic nations. The word genocide is frequently used in pro-Kremlin disinformation, but it seldom corresponds to the actual definition of a genocide. Recently, the emphasis of the disinformation campaign has been on Sandarmokh, where 7000-9000 victims of Stalin's terror were executed in the Republic of Karelia, Russia, 1937-1938. Hundreds of monuments have been erected in Sandarmokh to commemorate the victims. To distract audiences from discussing Stalin's era repressions, beginning 2016, a disinformation message started being spread that among the dead were Soviet prisoners of war shot by invading Finns during 1941-44. There is no evidence to support the claim. Read the full debunk for Sandarmokh here.

Disinfo: Ukraine was created by Joseph Stalin

Do you know who created your country? It [Ukraine] was created by Stalin, whom you hate.

Oct 29, 2019
Disproof

Pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the history of Ukraine and Ukrainian statehood. The history of Ukraine dates back to the times of the Kyivan Rus’ in the IX-XIII centuries. As a nation-state, Ukraine was formed during the XVI-XIX centuries when it was divided by major European states: the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Rzeczpospolita) and the Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires. However, in the middle of the XVII century, parts of Ukraine's territories received independence from Poland and created an independent Cossacks Hetmanate. Later, it signed a military and political cooperation deal with Moscow, which was then used by Russian rulers to deprive Hetmanate of its sovereign rights. In the early XX century, after the collapse of the Russian empire, the Ukrainian People’s Republic was proclaimed. In Western Ukraine, which at the time was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, the Western Ukrainian National Republic was created. On 22 January 1919, the two states signed a Unification Act creating a unified state. Other territories wanted to join the new Ukrainian state, such as Northern Bukovyna and Crimea, and adopted appeals to the government of a unified Ukrainian People’s Republic. For a historical perspective see here [in Ukrainian].