Russia's disinformation campaigns are developing into a parallel war, and NATO is also repeatedly a target. The DW fact check team shows how the Russian propaganda machine works.
< p>At the latest since the Maidan revolution and the annexation of Crimea in 2014, Russia has been trying to create public spirit with targeted disinformation campaigns abroad in addition to state propaganda at home. Although the extent of the Russian disinformation over the past twelve months cannot be measured quantitatively, the experts interviewed by DW agree: Both the intensity and the ways in which Russian disinformation was spread have increased. A narrative that has persisted, and not only since the beginning of the war, is that NATO is threatening Russia, even wanting to take it.
Since 2014 there have been rumors of NATO interference in Ukraine
An “invasion as a defence”
Long before the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia was promoting such narratives to justify the war. “(The false claims) probably started with the Euromaidan, around 2014. Since then, the Russians have been claiming that the West is interfering in Ukraine,” Roman Osadchuk of the Research Associate Atlantic Council told DW.
In many Russian stories, cause and effect are reversed, explains Lutz Güllner, Head of Strategic Communications at the European External Action Service (EEAS). “It's always about showing how much Russia is actually threatened, encircled, also threatened by Ukraine and therefore has to defend itself and that's why war is nothing but defense.”
So Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed in a televised address a few days before the attack that NATO had “continued to expand” and that its military infrastructure was approaching Russia's borders. Putin speaks of the “eastward expansion of the NATO bloc, bringing its military infrastructure closer to the border of Russia”.
Shortly before the start of the war, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that NATO had “continued to expand”.
This statement is correct: since the collapse of the Soviet Union, 14 Eastern European countries have been admitted to NATO. Four of them border on Russia. In 2008, Ukraine was also given the prospect of joining NATO.
It is also true: NATO has made logistical preparations in its Eastern European member states and also prepared airfields for the rapid reinforcement of troops. However, the truth is that it did so after 2014, in response to Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea. NATO continues to respect the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act, which prohibits the additional permanent stationing of substantial combat troops in the NATO accession states. Putin was also unable to provide any evidence for his claim. And yet he kept using the same narrative: NATO is a threat to Russia.
Putin also claims that the Russian-speaking people in the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk have been exposed to genocide by Ukrainians for years and that Ukraine should ” be denazified”.
Not only locals as targets of Russian propaganda
These false claims, which have already been refuted by DW, were disseminated primarily to a local audience by the Russian state media. But this narrative has also had a certain impact in the West. In October 2022, according to a study by the Center for Monitoring, Analysis and Strategy (CeMAS), 19 percent of those surveyed in Germany agreed with the statement that the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine was a Russian reaction to NATO provocations with no alternative. 21 percent agreed with this in part – so a total of 40 percent of Germans at least partially believe this narrative.
“That's a pretty high number, and it's probably a result of both disinformation campaigns and existing beliefs and attitudes towards NATO,” said Julia Smirnova, senior analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), who also helped spread the disinformation in this war.
The NATO and Ukraine supporters as warring parties?
At the beginning of the invasion, it was also claimed that there were US-funded bioweapons laboratories in Ukraine, which later turned out to be fake. The story about the alleged preparation of the so-called “dirty bomb” was circulated by the Russian Foreign Ministry, exposing the so-called “evidence” as older pictures of Russian nuclear power plants and smoke detectors in Slovenia.
Support for Ukraine from Western partners (financial aid, arms supplies, sanctions) is also being used to support Vladimir Putin's claim on the day of the invasion that Ukraine was “completely placed under external control” and “reinforced by armed forces Armed forces of NATO countries and pumped full of the most modern weapons”.
The Russian state media even reported that NATO troops were actively involved in the war in Ukraine and that some military units were under the de facto command of Western officers or instructors. As evidence, the photos and videos of foreign volunteers fighting alongside Ukraine were often used.
“In fact, the NATO bloc is fighting us, and its members control the Kiev regime with heavy weapons , supply ammunition and intelligence information and train military specialists,” said Nikolai Patrushev, Putin confidant and Secretary of the Security Council of Russia.
in early October 2022In May 2022, social media users falsely claimed that European Union member states were about to join the conflict. One video – with a BBC News logo – claimed the Polish military general had signed an order to put army detachments on “full alert”. The video was fake. The BBC confirmed that it had not produced any such report and its logo had been used to create a fake video. Polish government officials have accused Moscow of launching information attacks against the country.
NATO is a frequent subject of disinformation
Germany's recent decision to supply tanks to Ukraine was also immediately interpreted on social media as an admission by Olaf Scholz that NATO was at war with Russia.
More ahead Before the announcement, videos were already circulating that allegedly showed the delivery of German Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine
Before the announcement, videos were already circulating that allegedly showed the delivery of German Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine should. For Roman Osadchuk, it is no coincidence that such videos surrounding the decision to supply Germany's tanks to Ukraine are circulating en masse. “From a Russian perspective, the dissemination of such content can serve the purpose of making it clear that Europe is preparing to attack Russia.”