By EUvsDisinfo
Russia’s ongoing war of conquest in Ukraine was the first point on the agenda when EU foreign and defence ministers met in Brussels on 29 and 30 August. Josep Borrell, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (HRVP) and host of the meetings, made several key remarks before and after to clarify the topics of discussion.
The discussions and Borrell’s remarks caused the Kremlin and state-controlled outlets to start hurling by now well-established anti-EU narratives targeting the HRVP in particular. This move illustrates once again how news coverage in Russia is orchestrated and how disinformation techniques and narratives are used to attack the EU and support Russian aggression against Ukraine.
Let’s hold our nose and pull some filth from the Russian disinformation ecosystem cesspool.
The irony of third world war warnings
Thinly veiled threats of escalation and retaliation are a usual reaction to official discussions of EU aid to Ukraine. RIA Novosti, a domestic disinformation outlet masquerading as a legitimate news agency, published a column entitled ‘Borrell leads Europe to war with Russia’. The piece was translated into German and Greek, among other languages, and spread across disinfo ecosystems.
Meanwhile, Russian State Duma International Affairs Committee head Leonid Slutsky said Borrell risked igniting a third world war. And on his noxious Sunday evening show, TV propagandist Solovyov claimed Borrell had declared war and Russia could target ‘Brussels, Berlin, Madrid, and all the European capitals’ where Ukrainian soldiers were being trained.
The Kremlin likes to utter warnings about a ‘third world war’ and propagandists in its pay like to speak about launching bomb attacks on European cities and nuclear doctrine. They want to scare people in Europe and deter their governments from supporting Ukraine against Russian aggression.
People like Slutsky and Solovyov don’t see the irony that the state which started the largest armed conflict in Europe since the Second World War keeps warning about starting a third world war. In their twisted view of the world, Ukraine’s Western partners are themselves responsible for the conflict and Borrell’s remarks about EU support to Ukraine are proof of the EU’s desire to escalate.
Kleptocrats concerned about EU taxes
The EU is a project for peace. One of its main achievements has been the prevention of war in Europe. Attempts to claim that exactly this organisation is warmongering and trying to escalate any conflict are ludicrous, but that doesn’t prevent the Kremlin from trying.
Granted, the absurdity of the ‘warmongering EU’ story is mitigated somewhat when used in combination with another deceitful story: that EU governments are acting on the orders of the United States and hurting the interests of their own peoples in the process.
This story is repeated often. It also came up in reactions to Borrell’s remarks, for example in an interview of Kremlin spokesperson Dimitry Peskov on the TV show called – you couldn’t make this up – ‘Moscow, Kremlin, Putin’.
According to Peskov, EU member state governments carry out Washington’s orders when they support Ukraine. This hurts their own interests and the wallets of their taxpayers, and it will have inevitable, far-reaching consequences ‘in the next decade’. Unfortunately, Peskov forgot to mention why kleptocrats like him are so concerned about EU taxes. Such remarks are meant to scare ordinary EU citizens into thinking that EU support for Ukraine could hurt their finances.
Not sure if hateful or just ignorant
When monitoring Russian disinformation, it is sometimes hard to tell what is the result of the desire to smear the EU and what the result of simple ignorance. In one talk show, Borrell and the European Commission were accused of organising the informal minister meetings in fields outside their competence. This was presented as proof the EU is ‘looking for a way to become a proto-imperial structure with more power.’ As High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Borrell was performing exactly his role in hosting these meetings.
Remarks such as these are part of an established narrative that the EU is trying to take powers away from member states. The solution to this lie was presented on Solovyov’s Sunday evening programme, mentioned above. A regular pro-Kremlin expert-for-hire assuming the role of a ‘political scientist’, Henry Sardaryan, said Russia should sever relations with the EU, urge the ‘global majority’ to do the same, and work for the disintegration of the Union. Moscow should then maintain relations only with European national states. Such messages serve to cast the EU as an external enemy of Russian citizens to justify Russian aggression.
Attempts to smear Borrell show a nerve was hit
Apart from attacks against the EU, pro-Kremlin reactions also included a whole range of personal attacks against HRVP Borrell. This is again not a coincidence, but part of a deliberate Kremlin disinfo tactic to smear EU leaders. HRVP Borrell is being targeted in particular because of his clear language about Russian aggression and so reactions to his remarks around the EU ministers meeting were no surprise.
In this case, they made use of the fact that Borrell’s term will end this autumn to claim that he wanted to escalate the conflict as part of his legacy and to ‘remain in history as the main Russophobe in Europe’, in the words of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. He also said that Borrell’s assessment that President Zelenskyy’s formula is the only viable one is ‘dilettantism or madness’.
Other commentators went even farther and claimed that Borrell had organised the informal meetings to prepare for Ukraine’s annexation to the EU. In doing so, he had supposedly violated both Austria’s neutrality and French nationalism, all out of a ‘political inferiority complex’.
Personal attacks like these indicate Borrell’s remarks hit a nerve in the Kremlin. They are clearly worried about what increased EU support will mean for the prospects of their invasion.
Don’t be deceived!
Also on our Disinfo radar this week:
The arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov continues to feature on pro-Kremlin channels, with new disinfo stories claiming Durov was arrested on US orders because of his traditional values. The arrest also shows NATO countries have become the new Gestapo, the West lacks freedom of expression, and it’s no longer safe to travel to France. On top of it all, a video using the Al-Jazeera logo and spread by pro-Russian X accounts claimed the arrest cost France $17 billion because the United Arab Emirates, outraged by the arrest of its citizen, Durov, froze a contract to purchase 80 Rafale fighter jets. However, the video is fake. Al-Jazeera never reported this story and the UAE didn’t announce the cancellation of the defence contract with France.
Stories about chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons often appear in pro-Kremlin disinformation. We have documented many cases of Ukraine being accused of using these weapons against Russian occupiers. This latest iteration of the chemical weapons story claims that the US and UK provided Ukraine with toxic agents from the Saddam Hussein era in Iraq that they were supposed to have destroyed there. There is no evidence that the Ukrainian military has used Saddam Hussein’s or any other chemical weapons. There are serious concerns, however, that Russia could resort to using chemical weapons in Ukraine. The country has a history of projecting its own crimes and intentions through disinformation.
Russia has claimed since 2022 that it wants peace and an end to the conflict it started. Its proposals in this regard invariably demand that Ukraine surrender and accept ‘territorial reality’ by ceding territory. This reality now includes Ukrainian control over what some Russian commentators call ‘classical Russia’, meaning Russia within its internationally recognised 1991 borders. Undeterred by this, disinfo outlets continue to push false claims that Russia wants peace and that Putin’s peace initiatives mean something. Russian bombardments of civilians in Ukraine prove them wrong almost daily.
By EUvsDisinfo
