A French journalist says that during his trip to Paris, Volodomyr Zelenskiy, the frontrunner in Ukraine’s presidential race, impressed Emmanuel Macron, pointing out similarities between the two men.
This is a false quote, the words of the "French journalist" are fabricated.
On April 12th, Ukrainian comedian and presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelensky and French president Emmanuel Macron indeed met in Paris.
But Elise.com.ua falsely attributes this quote to French journalist Stephane Siohan, who was in fact first quoted by the Ukrainian website Strana.ua. Stephane Siohan works for Le Figaro, Le Temps and Le Soir in Kyiv. On his Facebook page, he mentions that he never spoke to Strana.ua.
“No, I never gave an interview on Strana.ua website about Zelensky. If you read a quote with my name, then this is a fake. I have never talked to Strana.ua and usually do not give interviews about the elections I work on. This is a principle. Especially in Ukraine”.
Strana.ua used Siohan's name and later changed it to “Lucas Talarn”. Google search still shows the previous version of the article on Strana.ua. Other websites still have the same quote with Stephane's name. Stephane told EUvsDisinfo:
“There are many sites which relay the info that I have given an interview to Strana.ua, but strangely Strana publishes an article with the name of an unknown journalist who doesn’t work in Ukraine.”
The Estonian political party Isamaa is pure crypto-fascists, who laid the theoretical basis of radical Estonian nationalism and paved the way for more radical structures, such as EKRE.
Estonia is not a sovereign state, so there will be as much Nazism as people will allow.
Recurrent pro-Kremlin narrative, questioning the sovereignty of Estonia. Similar cases can be studied here.
There is no Nazi party in Estonia and but accusations like these are common in pro-Kremlin media.
EU pledges EUR 2m to support enhancement of professional reporting and free flow of information in Belarus. This is yet another on of the EU’s mechanisms to meddle in the sovereign affairs of post-Soviet countries. The EU wants to create a pool of controlled journalists and experts who are hostile to national interests in economics, culture, etc. These financial resources will ultimately be directed at destabilizing the political station in Belarus with the media as a tool.
The disinformation message is consistent with recurring pro-Kremlin narrative about the Western attempts to instigate colour revolutions in EU neighbourhood including Belarus. Examples of earlier disinformation with a similar narrative here and here.
The Delegation of the European Union to Belarus has indeed published a call for proposals to support professional reporting and free flow of information in Belarus. In the world 2018 press freedom ranking by Reporters without Borders Belarus is 155th among 180 countries.
The Ukrainian society has no real choice at the presidential election. The two presidential candidates are significantly dependent on external actors, including the US. Neither Petro Poroshenko nor Volodymir Zelenskyi will pursue policies beneficial to Ukraine’s national interests.
Conspiracy theory, no evidence given about alleged Western influence over the Ukrainian electoral process. Recurring disinformation narrative about Western meddling in Ukraine's elections and Ukraine as a state under foreign control.
See also earlier cases calling the Ukrainian presidential candidates US puppets.
