Disinfo: The White Helmets are a British intelligence organisation

Summary

[Local sources in the Idlib countryside confirmed, quoting elements from] the British Intelligence “White Helmets” Organisation, [that seven victims of the “Jabhat al-Nusra” organization, the arm of al-Qaeda in the Levant, had been transferred to the “Jisr al-Shughour” hospital.]

Disproof

See disinformation message in bold above. An example of the ongoing disinformation campaign targeting the White Helmets humanitarian organisation. Pro-Kremlin media routinely seek to delegitimise the White Helmets as being the creation of Western intelligence services. No evidence is given to support this unfounded conspiracy theory.

The White Helmets movement originated in Syria in 2012. The organisation, which is made up of 3,400 volunteers including teachers, engineers, tailors and firefighters, states that it has no affiliation to any political or military actor and is committed to rendering services to anyone in need. Volunteers save people from the rubble after bombings, despite the danger of dying themselves as a result of repeated air strikes.

White Helmets activists have documented the use of chemical weapons in Syria, later confirmed by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). Thus, OPCW said it found reasonable grounds to believe that chlorine was used as a weapon in the Douma district of Eastern Ghouta, Syria in April 2018. Because of these awareness-raising activities, the White Helmets have become the target of a prolific and aggressive Russian disinformation campaign seeking to delegitimise their humanitarian efforts and paint them as proxies of Western intelligence to undermine the Assad regime.

Read previous disinformation claims alleging that that evidence confirms chemical attacks in Syria were falsified by the White Helmets, and that the White Helmets performs criminal activities and is an arm of British and American intelligence.

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Syrian News App (Archived)
  • Reported in: Issue 196
  • DATE OF PUBLICATION: 17/04/2020
  • Outlet language(s) Arabic
  • Countries and/or Regions discussed in the disinformation: UK, Syria
  • Keywords: White Helmets, Conspiracy theory, Syrian War
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Apr 16, 2020
Disproof

Regular disinformation about the coronavirus. WHO advises people of all ages to take steps to protect themselves from the virus, for example by following good hand hygiene and good respiratory hygiene. People of all ages can be infected by the new coronavirus. Graham Roberts, an honorary consultant paediatrician at the University of Southampton, explains: "Children (with COVID-19) are predominantly affected in their upper airways (nose, mouths, and throats) so they get cold-like features rather than the virus managing to access their lower airways, ie lungs, and giving the pneumonia and life-threatening Sars picture that we see with adult patients." The proportion of infected children who went on to develop severe or critical COVID-19 illnesses with breathlessness, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), and shock was much lower (6%) than among Chinese adults (19%) – especially older adults with chronic cardiovascular or respiratory conditions. However, there are still cases of children dying from COVID-19. For example, on April 4, a five-year-old child in the UK with underlying health conditions passed away.

Disinfo: Myth about Ukraine as a separate nation was created in the USSR

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Apr 16, 2020
Disproof

Recurrent pro-Kremlin propaganda narrative questioning the Ukrainian statehood. Ukraine is a well-defined nation-state that has preserved language, literature and identity despite foreign rule for long periods. It is a sovereign state whose borders are guaranteed by international agreements but were violated by Russia, which started a war in Ukraine. The publication uses a derogatory term 'Little Russians' to identify Ukrainians, which derives from imperial Russian and Russian irredentist ideology that is a favoured pro-Kremlin narrative aimed at weakening the national identity of Ukrainians and undermining Ukraine's sovereignty. See also previous narratives claiming that there is no Ukraine, that Belarusians, Russians and Ukrainians are the same nation, and that Ukrainians are Russians, not Ukrainians.

Disinfo: EU is suffering from the sanctions against Russia

Sanctions against Russia are speeding up the suffering of the European economy.

Apr 16, 2020
Disproof

Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about Western sanctions on Russia claiming that they have backfired. Since March 2014, the EU has progressively imposed restrictive measures against Russia. The measures were adopted in response to the illegal annexation of Crimea and the deliberate destabilisation of Ukraine.

According to research into the effect of sanctions, the cumulative export loss to Russia during 2014-2018 is estimated at EUR 30 billion (about -0.2% of EU’s GDP in 2018), incurred largely during 2014-2016, as EU exports to Russia recovered in 2017. While these sanctions do effect EU's economy, the EU-wide impacts of the export losses are estimated at less than 0.2% of total value-added and employment.