DISINFO: The Eastern Partnership is EU's colonial tool and the source of conflicts in post-Soviet states
SUMMARY
The Eastern Partnership's aim is to keep post-Soviet countries in colonial dependence on the EU. The EaP created the framework for western foundations and networks of influence to penetrate into Belarus and therefore contributed to the 2020 political crisis in Belarus. Most crisis situations in the post-Soviet countries stem from EaP membership, be it Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, or Armenia.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives about Belarusian protests and the Eastern Partnership.
The Eastern Partnership (EaP) is a joint policy initiative which aims to deepen and strengthen relations between the European Union (EU), its Member States and its six Eastern neighbours: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.
The Eastern Partnership is a mutually beneficial and constructive platform for countries in the region to build a closer relationship with the EU if they choose to do so. Within this framework, guiding the EU's relations with its neighbours is the EU’s Global Strategy and the European Neighbourhood Policy, which calls for the need to focus on increasing the stabilisation and resilience of the EU's Eastern neighbours. The Eastern Partnership stands for good neighbourly relations and respects the individual aspirations and ambitions of each partner country.
The Belarusian protests and political crisis in Belarus resulted not from Belarus's membership in the Eastern Partnership, but from large-scale public discontent concerning election fraud and police violence towards peaceful protest participants. According to statistical data and independent observers, the official result of the presidential election was heavily doctored. A joint monitoring effort by three NGOs demonstrates the scale of falsification based on election protocols from 1,310 polling stations across Belarus and concludes that the announced result (80% of votes cast for Lukashenka) is mathematically "impossible" (p. 7).
See earlier disinformation cases claiming that the aim of the Eastern Partnership is to separate Russia from its neighbours, that the Eastern Partnership and the Three Seas Initiative are anti-Russian, that the Eastern Partnership is an instrument of energy colonialism, or that the Eastern Partnership is about external control and disintegration.