The Russian propaganda machine misrepresents and even invents information since the end of 2021 to justify or disguise the movement of troops towards the border with Ukraine, according to what is found. EUvsDisinfo, a European Union team specialized in combating Russian lies about Europe. According to their analyses, both the government of Vladimir Putin itself and the media close to the Kremlin have constructed an alternative narrative to the events in which they blame Kiev and NATO for the concentration of Russian soldiers at the gates of their neighboring country.
Pro-Kremlin media have published dozens of reports defending the idea that Russia has mobilized its soldiers to prepare against the “imminent attack on Ukraine,” a nation they accuse of being dominated by “neo-Nazis” trained by Western powers. . An example of this type of message is the warning issued by several pro-Russian media outlets that NATO intends to install military bases in Ukraine to invade Russia or even that 10,000 soldiers from the Atlantic alliance are already on the ground, as published without evidence de.rt.com last December 20. “The warning that Ukraine is preparing an aggression is a very frequent narrative” within Russian disinformation to blame the West for the escalation of tension in Eastern Europe, says the EU anti-hoax squad.
However, there are other types of messages that may be contradictory to this narrative. Some media from the Kremlin’s orbit spread that the European press blamed Moscow for a false aggression against Ukraine to justify the sale of arms to Kiev. Or that the pro-Russian population of the Ukrainian region of Donbas was in danger, a reason that had forced the deployment of Russian soldiers in the area.
These apparent inconsistencies are, however, part of a disinformation strategy in which the main message is confusion. According to EUvsDisinfo, it is the implementation of the Russian military theory on information warfare, which defends the need to create a narrative in a preventive way to fill “the empty spaces in the flow of information”. That is to say, the objective is not to spread an idea or a message but to confuse the audience with excess information to generate mistrust.
These types of narratives are not only promoted by the media. On December 17, the Russian Foreign Ministry published the drafts of two proposed agreements, one with U.S and another with NATO, to lower the tension on the border with Ukraine. Among its clauses is the commitment “not to further expand the Atlantic alliance, including the accession of Ukraine and other states.” Although the documents, produced by Moscow, do not constitute a serious offer of negotiation, they contain in their wording the traditional disinformation narratives: that Russia is a superpower surrounded by hostile forces or that Ukraine is a threat to Russia.
Ukraine, neo-Nazis and historical ties with Russia
Join EL PAÍS to follow all the news and read without limits.
subscribe
The pro-Kremlin media have tried to portray Ukraine as a ruthless country. means like RT or Sputnik released a video on their social networks in early December in which Ukrainian border guards allegedly killed a group of migrants trying to enter the country across the border with Belarus. In the images, impossible to geolocate and apparently recorded with an infrared camera, a group of people can be seen moving on the ground at night, when they are suddenly shot. The Ukrainian government has assured that the images are false.
Another recurring example of an attempt to discredit Ukraine’s image is the alleged relationship between its leaders and neo-fascism. The Web Ria.ru published last December that a “state terrorism” prevails in the country only comparable to “the times of the Nazi occupation.” Too akhbarak.net Y arabic.rt.com they accused in their pages the “Ukrainian regime” of “murdering the opposition with the help of neo-Nazis”.
And the only way of salvation before the Ukrainian decline, according to Russian propaganda, is to return to the arms of the motherland. On July 12, Russian President Vladimir Putin published a 5,000-word article entitled On the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians, in which the Kremlin leader expresses his love for Ukraine – because “Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians are all descendants of Old Russia” – but at the same time threatens if the country breaks away from Russian influence. In his particular take on history, which apparently stems from his personal research, Putin states: “Ukraine was drawn into a dangerous geopolitical game designed to make it a barrier between Europe and Russia, a springboard against Russia.” And he warns: “There was a need for the concept of ‘anti-Russia’ that we will never accept.”
Follow all the international information in Facebook Y Twitter, or in our weekly newsletter.
#information #war #Kremlin #lie #weapon