Disinfo: There is no one to fight the coronavirus in Ukraine, the epidemiological system is destroyed

Summary

The headquarters for coordination and prevention of the coronavirus threat in Ukraine is populism because there are still no such specialists in the country. The epidemiological system is destroyed, and no university in Ukraine prepares epidemiologists.

Disproof

Conspiracy theory and a recurring pro-Kremlin narrative about the new strain of coronavirus. It also taps into another often used pro-Kremlin technique, trying to show Ukraine as a failed state.

The epidemiological system in Ukraine has not been destroyed but reformed. Instead of the State Sanitary and Epidemiological Service, there is now a “Public Health Centre of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine” that performs the same functions.

Ex-minister of Health Ulyana Suprun stressed that the elimination of various epidemiological institutions was announced only after almost all of her supervisory and permitting functions had been transferred to other organisations in 2014.

The State Institution “Public Health Centre of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine” is a health institution responsible for preserving and promoting public health, social and hygienic disease monitoring, epidemiological surveillance and biological safety for the group and population-based disease prevention, epidemic control and strategic public health management. The training of epidemiologists continues in Ukraine as before.

publication/media

  • Reported in: Issue 183
  • DATE OF PUBLICATION: 04/02/2020
  • Outlet language(s) Russian
  • Countries and/or Regions discussed in the disinformation: Ukraine
  • Keywords: coronavirus, health
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Disinfo: Anti-Semitism flourishes in Ukraine

In Ukraine anti-Semitism, racism, nationalism and xenophobia flourish. But the Ukrainian authorities refuse to admit it.

Disproof

This is the Kremlin’s systematic disinformation campaign that anti-Semitism in Ukraine is on the rise and that Ukraine is a Nazi state.

The Israeli government’s annual report on anti-Semitism in the world says that by the end of 2018, Ukraine recorded a low incidence of intolerance towards Jews. Moreover, the report presented in 2019 by the Israeli Minister for Diaspora Relations, Naftali Bennett, states that “the anti-Semitic incidents in Ukraine were inspired by outsider forces hostile to Ukraine, aimed at discrediting Ukraine in the eyes of the global community” (p. 72).

Disinfo: Ukraine is sold in parts to the West

Ukraine is sold in parts to the West. The Ukrainian government sold the country’s main railway company, Ukrzaliznytsia, to Germany. External governance, hidden under the guise of reforms initiated by external actors, result in the obvious – the loss of sovereignty, territories, and the state as such.

Disproof

Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative claiming that Ukraine is a failed, disintegrating state with no sovereignty and under Western control. Ukraine has not “sold” or “handed out pieces” of its main transport company to Western partners. During the Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on 22 January 2020, Ukrainian Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk announced that German national rail operator Deutsche Bahn had signed a memorandum of cooperation with the Ukrainian Ministry of Infrastructure. According to Honcharuk, the memorandum does not even speak about the “sale or lease of such a strategically important state object, but rather that German specialists will advise on the reorganisation of Ukrzaliznytsia.” At the same time, Deutsche Bahn specified: the management of Ukrzaliznytsia will remain in the hands of the state, and “the engineering and consulting company Deutsche Bahn on infrastructure, mobile and transport projects will advise and support the Ukrainian railway in business and technical matters." For similar cases, see here.

Disinfo: Stalin never cooperated with Hitler

Joseph Stalin was not named a criminal in any legal documents and never cooperated with Adolf Hitler. It was Stalin who stopped Hitler.

Disproof

Recurring pro-Kremlin narrative that the Soviet Union is not responsible for starting World War II. Read similar cases that the USSR signed the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact with Nazi due to Poland's aggressive policy and that the Soviet Union was forced to sign the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact. The USSR also started negotiations with Germany in parallel and on 23 August 1939 signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop (Stalin-Hitler) pact. The agreement was accompanied by a secret supplementary protocol, which divided territories of Romania, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland into German and Soviet "spheres of influence". The pact had the most tragic consequences for European nations and the world. What followed was the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany and the USSR in September 1939, followed by the further carving up of Europe. The Kremlin denied the existence of the secret protocol to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact up until 1989.