As Ukraine Conflict Heats Up, Russian Disinformation Claims Ukraine Plotting Genocide And NATO Preparing To Attack Russia

US and Euro­pean media are report­ing that as the Ukraine con­flict heats up, Rus­sia has increased its dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paigns, spread­ing false­hoods and lies about Ukraine and NATO. Accord­ing to a report by the New York Times, social media posts are accus­ing Ukraine of plot­ting geno­cide against eth­nic Russians.

Jan­u­ary 25, 2022 WASHINGTON — As the Unit­ed States issued warn­ings last month about the Russ­ian troops on Ukraine’s bor­ders and Pres­i­dent Biden threat­ened Pres­i­dent Vladimir V. Putin with sanc­tions if he launched an inva­sion, researchers noticed an uptick in social media posts accus­ing Ukraine of plot­ting a geno­cide against eth­nic Rus­sians.  In one exam­ple, an arm of the Moscow-con­trolled broad­cast­er RT cir­cu­lat­ed a clip of Mr. Putin say­ing that events in east­ern Ukraine “resem­ble geno­cide.” News Front, which the State Depart­ment has called a dis­in­for­ma­tion out­let with ties to Russ­ian secu­ri­ty ser­vices, fol­lowed with an arti­cle on Dec. 13 that said the Unit­ed States did not con­sid­er the mas­sacres to be a geno­cide.  In the months since the Russ­ian troop buildup began, Moscow and its online army of allies have pushed out old argu­ments about west­ern Ukraini­ans being aligned with Nazism, false­ly accused the Unit­ed States of using proxy forces to plot a chem­i­cal attack and claimed that Russia’s planned mil­i­tary oper­a­tions were intend­ed to pro­tect eth­nic Rus­sians or pre-empt action by NATO, accord­ing to researchers.

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Accord­ing to a  Politi­co Europe report, Russ­ian media is claim­ing that NATO is prepar­ing to attack Rus­sia, and Ukrain­ian spe­cial forces are plan­ning “false flag” operations:

Jan­u­ary 27, 2022 Ukrain­ian spe­cial forces plan­ning so-called “false flag” oper­a­tions. The Unit­ed States con­sid­er­ing chem­i­cal weapons attacks in the East­ern Euro­pean coun­try. NATO prepar­ing to attack Rus­sia dur­ing the upcom­ing Win­ter Olympics.  The Krem­lin is ratch­et­ing up its dis­in­for­ma­tion game with claims like these amid ris­ing geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions between Moscow and West­ern cap­i­tals, accord­ing to a review of state-backed media con­tent over the last 10 days by POLITICO.  The cam­paign — spread via Moscow-backed out­lets like RT, domes­tic state-owned broad­cast­ers and fake social media accounts in mul­ti­ple West­ern lan­guages — coin­cides with a large-scale mil­i­tary buildup along the Ukrain­ian bor­der and increased West­ern mil­i­tary aide to sup­port Kyiv.  Moscow’s goal, accord­ing to three West­ern nation­al secu­ri­ty offi­cials and five exter­nal dis­in­for­ma­tion researchers, is to use wedge issues to fos­ter divi­sion among West­ern coun­tries over their sup­port for Ukraine; counter NATO’s claims against Moscow; and cre­ate plau­si­ble deni­a­bil­i­ty over poten­tial atroc­i­ties includ­ing the pos­si­ble use of chem­i­cal weapons.

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Last week, we report­ed on sim­i­lar Russ­ian pro­pa­gan­da cam­paigns push­ing twist­ed his­tor­i­cal facts and the lie that Ukraini­ans and Rus­sians are “one people.”