Russian Military Build-Up On Ukrainian Border Accompanied by Intensified Disinformation Efforts

EUvs­Dis­in­fo, a dis­in­for­ma­tion watch­dog affil­i­at­ed with the Euro­pean Union’s for­eign ser­vice, is report­ing that Russia’s build-up of mil­i­tary forces along the Ukrain­ian bor­der is accom­pa­nied by the expect­ed and inten­si­fied dis­in­for­ma­tion efforts. Accord­ing to a EUvs­Dis­in­fo report:

April 15, 2021 For exam­ple, we spot­ted the claim the Ukrain­ian Armed Forces seek to pro­voke a full-scale armed con­flict in Don­bas. Sim­i­lar­ly, there was a claim that by pro­vok­ing Rus­sia, Ukraine plays the role assigned to it by NATO, name­ly to jus­ti­fy the exis­tence of the Alliance under the pre­text of the Russ­ian threat.  Many of these nar­ra­tives aim to por­tray Ukraine as a pup­pet of the West, forc­ing audi­ences to see the con­flict as an easy-to-com­pre­hend stand­off between East and West. Think of the claim that “Anglo-Sax­ons” are push­ing Kyiv to full-scale hos­til­i­ties in Don­bas. Also sup­port­ing this frame­work is the false sto­ry alleg­ing that Pres­i­dent Zelen­skyy tries to seize pow­er by force in order to please for­eign spon­sors. Sim­i­lar is the claim that Zelen­skyy is unable to make inde­pen­dent deci­sions and dances to the tune of the US. […]

Pro-Krem­lin media also spread dis­in­for­ma­tion down­play­ing Russia’s role in Ukraine. Since 2015, we have already spot­ted 116 claims about a civ­il war in the coun­try. This sup­ports the false view that Ukraine is locked in a civ­il war, while mask­ing Russia’s inter­fer­ence and ille­gal annex­a­tion of Crimea.  This nar­ra­tive was rein­forced by the claim Rus­sia is not a par­ty to the con­flict and is not inter­est­ed in a con­flict with Ukraine. In a sim­i­lar fash­ion: the con­flict in Don­bas is only inter­nal, the Russ­ian army is not a part in hos­til­i­ties in Ukraine. In a more extreme vari­ant of nar­ra­tive: Ukraine is becom­ing author­i­tar­i­an, and is prepar­ing a genocide!

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In Decem­ber, we report­ed on a Russ­ian intel­li­gence-tied media project ded­i­cat­ed to pub­li­ciz­ing alter­na­tive nar­ra­tives about the caus­es of the crash of the MH14 in Ukraine, cast­ing doubt on evi­dence impli­cat­ing Rus­sia and the sep­a­ratists in the downing.