Russia didn’t commit any war crime in Syria, contrary to what is stated in the report of the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Arab country published on March 2, 2020. The allegations of war crimes were made immediately after terrorists started their offensive against Syrian troops in Idlib, so no committee may get reliable information on what was going on on the ground. The report is unilateral, not objective and terrorist actions are not taken into account.
The allegations are false. The report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic is based on evidence available, including witness testimonies, video footage, data imagery as well as reports by flight spotters, flight communication intercepts and early warning observation reports, enough for the body to conclude that there was reasonable grounds to believe that a Russian aircraft participated in two episodes tantamount to war crimes (p.6). In both incidents, the Russian Air Force did not direct the attacks at a specific military objective, amounting to the war crime of launching indiscriminate attacks in civilian areas. The report also addresses human rights violations by terrorist groups -describing them as such- from the very beginning of the document, in the third paragraph of the introductory summary, as well as the actions of the Turkish and Syrian governmental armies, so the claim of bias is unfounded. This is part of a recurrent pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about Russia or its allies always being falsely accused of war crimes and international law violations. You can see many other examples in our database, such as allegations that the Russian army doesn’t deliberately target civilians, unlike the US, or that Amnesty International is an ideological tool of US security services, Russia’s insistence on an alleged lack of interest in finding the truth in the Skripal and Litvinenko cases or in the downing of the MH17 flight, or claims about the anti-Russian bias of the OPCW, the World Anti-Doping Agency, the PACE, Ukraine’s national DNA or the West in general.
This message is part of the Kremlin’s policy of historical revisionism – it accuses the Baltic states, Ukraine and Poland in “falsification and re-writing” of their history. It is a fact that both Nazi Germany and the Stalinist USSR were totalitarian regimes, which caused the deaths of tens of millions of people. It is also proven that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact contained the Secret Supplementary Protocol, which assumed the division of the territories of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, and Romania into Soviet and Nazi spheres of influence. The Soviet Union's occupation of the Baltic states lasted from 1940-1941 and 1944-1990 and resulted in mass deportations and repressions against local populations. Read similar cases claiming that Lithuanian authorities rewrite the history of their own country, that Poland and Lithuania question the status of Russia as a country who won WWII, and that US vassals question the outcome and results of the WWII.
Lithuanian politicians, do not and cannot, have their own opinions. Moreover, there is no Lithuanian policy and cannot be. There is a certain degree of sovereignty like that of a dog tied to a short leash. In the East of NATO and the EU, a Lithuanian political dog is tied to guard the yard. It has freedom within the chain, freedom of expression that is made to address two Eastern neighbors – Russia and Belarus.
This message is part of a Pro Kremlin disinformation narrative undermining the statehood of Lithuania, presenting the Baltic states as not sovereign, as “vassals” of US and NATO and used against Russia. See other examples of this narrative here, here and here. Lithuania is an independent state, which makes sovereign decisions about its foreign and domestic policy. NATO's increased presence in the Baltic Sea region has been at the request of the Baltic states. Following Russia's aggressive actions against Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia requested a greater NATO presence in the region. See earlier disinformation cases alleging that Lithuania is occupied by NATO, NATO buried Latvia’s and Lithuania’s independence, Baltic countries are typical replica states with no own political history and tradition, Lithuania is not independent because it follows the same position as the EU, NATO and the US, Lithuania is a hostage of the American interests in Eastern Europe.
Conspiracy theory about the 2019-nCoV coronavirus, as well as recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the secret elites (CIA, Global Government, Soros, etc.), “globalist elites” and “shadow governments” that rob nations of their sovereignty and identity, crush economies and threaten traditional values. There is no evidence that suggests that the coronavirus (2019-nCoV) is used as a weapon against other states. It comes from a family of viruses that include other viruses such as SARS and MERS. It was first reported in the Chinese city of Wuhan in central China and has been rapidly spreading with new cases being reported in the Asia-Pacific region as well as Europe, North America and the Middle East, causing more than 3584 deaths by 08 March 2020. As of 8th March 2020, coronavirus was confirmed in over 100 countries in all continents (except Antarctica). The identity of the animal source of the coronavirus, named nCoV-2019, has been one of the key questions for the researchers. Coronaviruses are known to circulate in mammals and birds, and scientists have already suggested that nCoV-2019 originally came from bats. One of the previous coronaviruses that caused severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, spread from bats to civet cats to humans. The South China Agricultural University in Guangzhou says that two of its researchers have identified the pangolin as the potential source of nCoV-2019. This was announced to reporters at a press conference on 7 February 2020.
