DISINFO: The West will always consider Russia to be medieval
DISINFORMATION CASE DETAILS
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West Destabilising Russia

DISINFO: The West will always consider Russia to be medieval

SUMMARY

The West will always consider Russia to be medieval as the West has different interests and the West will never let Russia be alongside it and gain the moral right to conversation.

RESPONSE

Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation about Western policies towards Russia. euvsdisinfo.eu/disinformation-cases/?text=&disinfo_issue=&disinfo_keywords%5B%5D=77319&date=, Foreign ministers of the EU have unanimously reconfirmed the relevance of the five guiding principles agreed in March 2016 for the EU's policy towards Russia. They provide a flexible framework for EU relations with Russia, allowing firmness on EU values and selective engagement where there is a clear EU interest. www.consilium.europa.eu/en/meetings/fac/2018/04/16/, The EU is Russia's main trading and investment partner, while Russia as the EU's fourth is also its largest oil, gas, uranium and coal exporter. https://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/russia/720/russian-federation-and-european-union-eu_en

  • There is in fact a clear record of strong cooperation between the EU and Russia, dating back to 1994, when the two sides negotiated a Partnership and Cooperation Agreement. Russia was identified as a strategic partner for the EU, and was the only country with which the EU held summits not once, but twice a year. A new EU-Russia agreement was being negotiated up until 2014, at which point talks were unfortunately suspended due to Russia's involvement in the Ukraine conflict. Negotiations were also in train on visa facilitation. There was also cooperation between the EU and Russia on a number of foreign policy issues, some of which continues to this day. The EU and its Member States have maintained a clear policy of reaching out to Russian society and youth, mainly through the Erasmus+ student exchange programme and other people to people contacts.

  • NATO has consistently worked hard to build a cooperative relationship with Russia since the early 1990s, through the Partnership for Peace and creation of a NATO-Russia Council, and specific cooperation in the Western Balkans on and issues like counter-narcotics and counter-terrorism. In fact, as NATO points out, no other NATO partner has been offered a comparable relationship, nor a similarly comprehensive institutional framework: http://bit.ly/2e0TZnG.

  • In 1997, Russia was invited to join the G7 group of major advanced economies in the world, thus forming the G8. (At the time, Russia ranked 14th to 17th in the list of countries according to GDP: http://bit.ly/2dWb51l; http://bit.ly/2ejhOpw; http://bit.ly/2dqu4jQ). In 2006, President Putin hosted the G8 summit in Saint Petersburg. Russia's membership of the G8 was suspended in 2014 because of its illegal annexation of Crimea.

  • Russia joined the Council of Europe, the continent's leading human rights organisation, in 1996.

For more on EU-Russia relations see https://eeas.europa.eu/headquarters/headquarters-homepage/35939/european-union-and-russian-federation_en

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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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