EUvsDisinfo: Mud on new EU leaders (original title: Tainting the new dawn)
Several important developments in the European political landscape marked the past week. The European Council nominated a new EU political leadership for the next five years, and France held a contested first round of early parliamentary elections. The disinformation network of the Kremlin gave due space to both events. The media mouthpieces were ready and at full speed to smear the future political leadership of the EU, spread all kinds of misinformation and revive old conspiracy theories.
Horrors at the helm of the EU
On June 27, the leaders of the member states met at European Council level and agreed on the nominations for the highest positions in the EU. Pending a vote on the appointments in the European Parliament, member states agreed that the top jobs should go to Ursula von der Leyen for a second term as president of the European Commission, with Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kalas as high representative for foreign affairs and security policy and under the former Prime Minister of Portugal Antonio Costa as President of the European Council.
In continuation of the various tactics to smear the European elections, now the Kremlin disinformation-mongers have fired a new volley of lies and disinformation to undermine European democracy as a whole. First they accused the EU of deliberate spoiling< /a> of relations with Russia and called the EU's decisions “short-sighted”. This narrative conveniently ignores the reality that Europe's security was thrown into turmoil when it was Russia that invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022. However, the Kremlin labels the EU as the aggressor and claims that the EU is run by “Russophobes”. Russian media also accuse the EU leadership of being part of the “global elites”, of not representing the will of the European peoples, and of being absolutely incapable of governing.
It gets personal
Even before the nomination of Kaya Kalas as the future first diplomat of the EU, prominent pro-Kremlin voices publicly denounced “Estonization” of the EU and took up the malicious and manipulative message that the appointment of Kaia Callas would lead to World War III. Its core is to accuse Prime Minister Callas of “Russophobia”. The narrative of “Russophobia” is not new for the Kremlin. Usually anyone who dares to criticize Russia is sewn to him. So, quite naturally, the Kremlin hastened to play the “Russophobic” card and to attack Callas, who is an outspoken critic of Russia.
„Russophobia“ according to Schrödinger
Like the cat in Schrödinger's famous thought experiment, Russian disinformation also seems to be locked in a quantum superposition with multiple states of existence coexisting in parallel. The attacks, which claim that Ms Callas is a “Russophobe”, are a telling example of the Kremlin's tactic of flooding the information space with conflicting narratives. While some pro-Kremlin channels push the story of spreading “Russophobia” across the EU, others claim that Callas is actually Russian agentand her criticism of Russia is just a double bluff. In short, according to the Kremlin's twisted worldview, Callas can be both a hated “Russophobe” and a useful undercover Russian agent. Make no mistake – this is just another attempt by Moscow to tarnish the political leadership of the EU.
Another election under the Kremlin's crosshairs
The calling of early parliamentary elections in France came as a bit of a surprise and the propagandists of the Russian leadership took advantage of the situation, harnessing their entire arsenal of disinformation. The general tone of Russian media coverage of the French election was doom and gloom. Not for Russia, of course, but for France and the future of the EU. Some publications picked up the narrative that the unsatisfactory performance of President Macron's party in the elections due to his ardent support for Ukraine and that the French people supposedly no longer want to support that country. These messages are often combined with stoking fears of sending French troops to Ukraine. The lie that French or NATO troops were fighting and dying in Ukraine was detailed debunked.
The Kremlin and the media in its orbit have tried to portray President Macron and his party as warmongers and contrasted this with the claim that the people want peace by normalizing relations with Russia. Curiously, some pro-Kremlin media also claim that by dissolving the French parliament, President Macron has somehow betrayed Ukraine. Others are fueling a sense of political division in France and pushing the message that the election results mark the beginning of the end of the rule of the “globalist-Atlantic elites”.
All Ukraine
As always, the Kremlin's attempts at information manipulation have a distinct Ukrainian flavor. In other words – all the ills of the world supposedly stem from support for Ukraine. Whether it is said that this support is leading to political divisions in Europe or that it is causing rampant “Russophobia”, the Kremlin's message is clear – support for Ukraine will be the doom of Europe. Yet Europe is steadfastly supporting Ukraine, and that support will not be thwarted by the Kremlin's lies and manipulations. Don't be fooled!
Other topics in this week's review from EUvsDisinfo:
- The Kremlin has long sought to project its own imperial ambitions onto others, so the latest claim that the EU has begun annexing Ukraine and Moldova came as no surprise. This is a deliberate distortion of the fact that the EU has agreed to start membership negotiations with these two countries. In reality, membership of the EU is voluntary and those interested must apply for membership while fulfilling a set of conditions known as the Copenhagen criteria. Ultimately, this disinformation narrative seeks to downplay Russia's own illegal and violent territorial conquests of Russia in Ukraine and other territories.
- Invoking the specter of biological weapons is another old and tried tool in the Kremlin's actively used arsenal of fear-mongering conspiracy theories. This time the focus is on Africa, and the US is allegedly shifting biological weapons testing to Africa because Russia has thwarted the commission of these atrocities in Ukraine. There is no evidence to support any of these ridiculous stories. Indeed, the claims about US military biolabs are part of a long-standing Kremlin disinformation campaign and have been repeatedly debunked.
- The Russian leadership sees imagined American misdeeds everywhere. Another case in point is the rapidly gaining momentum of the fabricated story that the US was behind the attempted coup in Bolivia to get its hands on the lithium reserves. Asking the seemingly innocent question “who benefits?“ is a classic manipulation tactic for controlling conspiracy-prone minds. There is no evidence of any US involvement in the failed 2024 coup attempt in Bolivia. Neither the lithium deposits nor Bolivia's foreign relations appear to have played any role in the coup attempt, which was almost certainly the result of the internal political dynamics in the country.
EUvsDisinfo/ translation: Representation of the European Commission in Bulgaria