Disinfo: Ukraine would apply to join the United States

Recurring disinformation narrative that there is no proof of Russian interference in the elections in Western countries and the US - see examples here and here. In reality, there is evidence linking Russian state actors with interfering in electoral processes. Interference in French elections included personal attacks and mocking of the then presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron. Apart from biased reporting in the pro-Kremlin media, it included a made up story about Macron's offshore accounts (the so-called MacronGate) and an actual hack-and-leak operation. According to the Insider and Mediapart, the hacking was purported by the same GRU unit responsible for the hacking of the Democrats' servers in the US. For more information, see EUvsDisinfo analysis “Tackling disinformation à la française". The fact of Russian meddling in the 2016 US election was underlined by the US intelligence community already in January 2017. These findings were confirmed by the US Special Counsel investigation which found that "[t]he Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in a sweeping and systematic fashion" (p. 1). See additional debunking of the "no interference" narrative here. Read more about election meddling in France and elsewhere here.

Recurring pro-Kremlin narratives aiming to discredit the White Helmets and claiming that the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack was staged by Western actors in order to justify military action against the Assad regime. The OPCW’s Fact Finding Mission confirmed that people in Khan Shaykhun were exposed to sarin, a chemical weapon, on 4 April 2017. “The OPCW FFM has confirmed the use of sarin, a nerve agent, during the 4 April incident in Khan Shaykhun in Syria,” mentioned its Director-General in a report published on June 30, 2017. The UN-OPCW Joint Investigative Mechanism found Syria’s Government responsible for the attack in Khan Shaykhun. On April 10 2018, Russia vetoed a U.S.-drafted U.N. Security Council resolution that would have created a new inquiry to ascertain responsibility for chemical weapons attacks in Syria. In June, the OPCW members granted it power to assign blame for chemical attacks. The United Nations Human Rights Council blamed the Syrian government forces for the attack. “Government forces continued to deliberately target civilians, including through the use of chemical weapons against civilians in opposition-held areas. As part of an aerial campaign in northern Hama and southern Idlib, on 4 April the Syrian air force used sarin in Khan Shaykhun, killing over 80 people, most of whom were women and children,” says the report. Syrian government forces and their ally Russia continue to deny these facts. Read more about chemical attacks in Syria here and here.