DISINFO: The West has always been interested in dismembering Russia
SUMMARY
Western countries are accustomed to living at the expense of others and attempt to dominate using the dirtiest methods. The West has always been interested in weakening our country, whether the Russian Empire or the USSR. Just as it is interested now in weakening, or even dismembering, Russia so that it can lay its hands on our wealth. Now we see that the West miscalculated.
RESPONSE
Pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative accusing the West of anti-Russian policies, aggressive Russophobia, colonialism, and an allegedly belligerent and hostile agenda to destroy Russia. Such disinformation narratives aim to portray Russia as a victim and deflect any responsibility for Moscow’s actions. See also Russian Myths: no.5 Encirclement.
The article provides no evidence of such a coordinated strategy in the West's centuries-long plan to weaken and ultimately dismember Russia. The Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and the present-day Russian Federation were fundamentally different political systems and geopolitical actors, so portraying a single, uninterrupted Western strategy is historically reductive.
The claim that Western countries seek to “dismember Russia to exploit its wealth” is a recurring Kremlin narrative. No evidence of a Western plan to partition Russia or seize its natural resources. Western governments' policies toward Russia have varied considerably over time, ranging from cooperation and economic engagement to containment and sanctions.
From the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the emergence of a new Russia up to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine in 2014, Western countries have been trying to establish good-neighbourly relations with Moscow. According to the 1997 Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation, and Security between NATO and the Russian Federation, Russia was viewed as a partner of the alliance.
Western countries provided the former USSR and Russia with significant humanitarian assistance in the late 1980s and early 1990s, which effectively prevented the country from further fragmentation.
The authoritarian USSR was always at odds with the liberal values of Western democracies. The rise of authoritarianism and revanchism in post-Soviet Russia, particularly since 2000, has created real tensions between the Kremlin and the West, which have culminated in Russia’s ongoing war of aggression against Ukraine, which is the bloodiest armed conflict in Europe since the end of the Second World War in 1945. Russia has also resorted to other aggressive activities against Western nations, such as cyberattacks, election meddling, acts of espionage, etc.
The sharp deterioration in relations between Western countries and Russia is directly linked to Moscow's illegal and aggressive actions. Several issues affect bilateral relations, in particular Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.
For background, read our analysis: The “Russophobia” Myth: Appealing to the Lowest Feelings.
Read other similar cases in our database: Fifty countries are trying to wipe Russia off the earth; Russophobia is a long-term Anglo-Saxon project aimed at destroying Russia; The West calls for the Russian state to be destroyed; The West wants to tear Russia apart; NATO’s main goal has always been the destruction of Russia; The West proposed to divide Russia; The West needs to dismember and plunder Russia; Geopolitical rivals plan to dismember Russia with Western support; Russia's huge natural resources are the reason why the neo-liberal world is fighting against it, The West is using Navalny to access Russia's resources.