EUvsDisinfo: Running out of red paint (original title: Running out of red paint)
In recent days, many stories have taken on a UN-like flavor due to the important week in which world leaders have gathered in New York for the 79th UN General Assembly. In this context, fundamental themes such as war, peace, global stability and security come to the fore. The Kremlin sees the UN General Assembly as a place where it can spread a barrage of lies on a wide range of topics, rather than conduct serious multilateral diplomacy. And on the domestic front, Kremlin disinformation campaigners are diligently fanning more narrowly focused narratives. Every day they redraw deceptive red lines, sow fear with Russia's nuclear arsenal, make bombastic threats, and neglect peace.
This time we're not bluffing
For several weeks now, pro-Kremlin outlets have been propagating Putin's clumsy and thinly veiled threats of asymmetrical Russian retaliation if the West lifts restrictions on Ukraine's use of Western-supplied weapons to strike military targets inside Russia. The boss draws another dubiously categorical red line, and of course the Kremlin's sycophants loudly trumpet it. On September 19, the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling for the lifting of restrictions on Ukraine from striking legitimate military targets inside Russia. And the Kremlin's media propaganda quickly switched to maximum speed. The well-known media outlets from the "Pravda" circle - part of the Russian propaganda network "Portal Kombat" - immediately (and unmotivatedly) accused the European Union of declaring war on Russia, and the Russian state television "Pervyy Kanal" added to this the mantra "Russophobia".
3 minutes and 20 seconds
Others were not so delicate. The famous Russian propagandist Vladimir Solovyov carefully reflected the dire warnings of another infamous hero - the Speaker of the State Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin - who boasted that Russian "Sarmat" missiles could reach the European Parliament in 3 minutes and 20 seconds. This type of public speculation about the potential damage that Russian missiles could do to Europe may sound like simple bragging, but it is actually used to reinforce the artificial red lines that Putin draws. Volodin's statement also feeds into another favorite Kremlin disinformation message - the opposition of the political leadership of the West to "ordinary people". The manipulative suggestion is that the leadership or “elites“, as they are called in the Kremlin, make irresponsible, selfish decisions that put people in danger. The Kremlin has been exploiting the topic of global elites for years, planting hollow conspiracy theories and undermining public trust in legitimate governments.
Playing the nuclear card again
Russia's arsenal includes many threatening weapons, as its aggression against Ukraine painfully demonstrates, and the choice of the “Sarmat“ missiles as a threat to the EU is no coincidence. It is a long-range nuclear ballistic missile. By choosing this particular weapon – and despite the recent failed attempts to launch the “Sarmat“, the Kremlin finds an excuse to once again wave the nuclear scarecrow. There are hundreds of examples of the Kremlin playing the nuclear card over and over again. The pattern usually repeats itself: Putin issues a thinly veiled threat – we will take appropriate measures; political lackeys like Volodin add specifics – the “Sarmat“ missiles can reach Strasbourg in 3 minutes and 20 seconds; and finally, propagandists like Solovyov play the role of heralds so that everyone can hear. And there you have it! A new “red line“ has been drawn.
And again for peace
There is no doubt that accusations of Europe declaring war on Russia must be combined with the image of the Kremlin as an exemplary peacemaker? At least, that is the usual pro-Kremlin line. Good and kind Russia wants peace, but the evil and greedy West wants to continue fighting. Well, this week brought some inconvenience to Moscow along this line. The Kremlin's sincerity in wanting peace has always been highly questionable. Once it is known that Russia has no intention of engaging in a real process for a just and lasting peace, the Kremlin is able to pretend that it wants peace and accuse Ukraine of undermining efforts in this direction.
Time to back down
But wouldn't you say that, right after the peace summit on Ukraine in Switzerland in June, Ukraine switched to a new gear and opened up to the idea of Russia being invited to the next peace summit. Then the Kremlin simply ignored this and continued to undermine Ukrainian peace efforts. Now, however, in the context of the UN General Assembly, a just and lasting peace in Ukraine is back on the agenda, and the idea of holding a second summit is starting to take shape.
So, the Kremlin’s disinformation agents found themselves in an awkward position and had to back down again. After months of claiming that there would be no peace talks without Russia, the Kremlin is now rejecting the possibility of participating in a peace summit. Instead, the Kremlin has once again accused Ukraine of refusing peace, denounced any summit as an Anglo-Saxon plot to deceive Russia, and challenged the legitimacy of the Ukrainian government. Incidentally, the Kremlin was spreading the same disinformation narratives before the Bürgenstock summit in June. To sow even more confusion, Kremlin-friendly media outlets have rekindled the outdated but still false claim that the West botched the March 2022 peace talks in Istanbul.
On the issue of peace, the Kremlin – unlike Ukraine – can talk, but is clearly not ready to act.
“Ukrainian terrorism“ as a scarecrow
In the Kremlin’s distorted image, Ukraine is portrayed as a terrorist state and, accordingly, terrorists are not negotiated with. In an effort to undermine the possibility of peace talks, some media outlets even abused the current news about exploding pagers in Lebanon: they dug up a Ukrainian connection, claiming that Ukraine would acquire the capacity for such an attack on Russia. According to the Kremlin's logic, once Israel has such capabilities, it will share them with the US and UK, who will in turn provide them to Ukraine. It seems that for the Kremlin there is no topic, no matter how remote, that cannot be "sewn" to Ukraine through distortion and twist - so that Ukraine and its supporters are blamed for all the world's ills. Don't be fooled!
Other topics in this week's EUvsDisinfo roundup:
- The Kremlin is warming up for the upcoming winter by releasing a new batch of disinformation on the topic of “energy“. In an unhealthy exchange of roles of aggressor and victim, Moscow claims that Kiev caused the energy collapse in Kharkiv. Of course, the situation in Kharkiv and other frontline cities of Ukraine is difficult. But the root of the problem is Russia's aggression against Ukraine and its daily attacks that disrupt the supply of electricity, heating and water to the civilian population. Since October 10, 2022, Russia has carried out dozens of targeted missile strikes on the Ukrainian energy system. According to the Ministry of Energy of Ukraine, from October 2022 to September 2024 Ukrainian energy infrastructure sites have been subjected to 1,024 Russian attacks.
- Just before the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, Kremlin propagandists have floated the bizarre idea that a UN mandate should be established for the territories given to Poland by Stalin's will. Although it may seem absurd at first glance, this narrative is part of an ongoing effort to rewrite history, vindicate Stalin, and revise the political outcomes of World War II and the system of international relations established after Yalta and Potsdam. Poland is a particularly frequent target of these disinformation attempts. The decision to cede Silesia, part of East Prussia, and other former German territories to the Polish state was not made by Stalin - it was the result of a joint decision by the US, UK, and USSR at the Yalta Conference in February 1945 and the Potsdam Conference in July-August 1945. The Red Army liberated Poland from Nazi occupation (ed. note: after years earlier the Red Army had occupied Poland with Hitler), but this did not bring freedom, as the USSR held Poland under its control for 44 years and carried out decades of communist repression.
- The Kremlin disinformation campaigners have also dabbled in extreme conspiracy theories - they wrote that the British government is funding propaganda that is getting people to eat insects. This is a gross distortion of efforts to promote the consumption of alternative proteins such as plant proteins, lab-grown meat and protein-rich algae - in effect, a means of reducing the impact of domestic industry on the climate. Of course, you can also consume insect protein, but there is no global conspiracy forcing people to eat insects, as the Kremlin would have us believe. In fact, such disinformation stories aim to promote the well-known narrative of secret elites who control the fate of the masses. The ultimate goal of these messages is to undermine democratic institutions and impose the view of the “decline of the West“.
EUvsDisinfo/ translation: Representation of the European Commission in Bulgaria