DISINFO: The US targets Russian sovereignty through Navalny and European puppets

DISINFORMATION CASE DETAILS

  • Outlet: sputnik.by ( archive, original )
  • Date of publication: February 12, 2021
  • Countries / regions discussed: Poland, Germany, US, Belarus, Baltic states, Russia

DISINFO: The US targets Russian sovereignty through Navalny and European puppets

SUMMARY

The collective West, including Germany, consider themselves free to prepare political commandos to land in Russia, to demand special conditions for their mentees like Alexey Navalny, and ultimately to demand the transfer of power. Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation’s activities might have amounted to high treason. Probably the time has come to put an end to the bad practice of Western countries blowing up their political rubber dollies and then using them for hostile actions like calling for the introduction of sanctions.

Poland’s role is particular because it, together with the Baltic states, does its best to become Washington’s “favourite wife” in Europe. Poland played the first violin in the failed colour revolution in Belarus. Now the Poles attempt to pull the role of the main anti-Russian confrontation side on themselves. One cannot rule out that the whole Navalny history was a provocation targeting the Nord Stream 2 project. The US likes false flag games, under the guise of Poland, the Baltic states, or Russian opposition. Moscow’s political strategy should be firm and no sovereignty concessions to the West should be made.

RESPONSE

This article promotes recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation about the EU countries, particularly Poland and the Baltic states, as vassals of the US, Alexei Navalny, and groundless anti-Russian policies of the West.

Alexei Navalny was arrested and shortly after sentenced to prison following his return to Russia from Germany, where he was treated for poisoning with a Novichok-type chemical nerve agent. The European Union has condemned his arrest and demanded his immediate release.

Navalny was sentenced to three and a half years in prison as a Moscow court ruled in favour of the prosecution’s accusation that Mr. Navalny had violated parole on a prison sentence that he received in 2014. He and his brother were convicted of stealing about $500,000 from two companies. However, this was a conviction that the European Court of Human Rights called “arbitrary and manifestly unreasonable”.

This is one of the reasons that many Western officials have called for the immediate release of Mr. Navalny. Additionally, Alexei Navalny is an independent Russian politician, not a Western political rubber dolly as presented in the article. Groundless accusations of subservience to the West is a recurring technique used by the pro-Kremlin media to discredit Navalny and other figures of the Russian opposition.

The Nord Stream 2 is a Gazprom project, consisting of building a new export gas pipeline running from Russia to Germany across the Baltic Sea. The pipelaying operations commenced in the Baltic Sea in September 2018 in German territorial waters. See similar cases, claiming that the US hopes that the Navalny case will generate the cancellation of Nord Stream 2, and that the poisoning of Navalny is a provocation to spoil relations between Russia and Germany.

Finally, the EU Member States, including Poland and the Baltic states, are sovereign countries and make sovereign decisions about their own security and policies. See other disinformation cases presenting Poland as an American “puppet-state” and “banana republic”, and portraying Lithuania as NATO's barking dog.

Disclaimer

Cases in the EUvsDisinfo database focus on messages in the international information space that are identified as providing a partial, distorted, or false depiction of reality and spread key pro-Kremlin messages. This does not necessarily imply, however, that a given outlet is linked to the Kremlin or editorially pro-Kremlin, or that it has intentionally sought to disinform. EUvsDisinfo publications do not represent an official EU position, as the information and opinions expressed are based on media reporting and analysis of the East Stratcom Task Force.

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