Several European countries were subjected to pro-Kremlin disinformation over the past two weeks, like reported by euvsdisinfo.eu.
It was claimed in Sputnik that Lithuania follows totalitarian laws and that all Baltic states use “Soviet methods to combat Sputnik journalists”. No mention was made of the fact that all three Baltic counties ranked high in the recently published 2017 World Press Freedom Index. For a record of Sputnik journalism see here.
Anti-corruption demonstrations in Slovakia were portrayed as attempts at a colour revolution funded by George Soros, who allegedly manipulates the situation in Europe (read more about disinformation directed at Soros here).
EU member states were also accused of robbing Ukrainian soil, of developing secret electro-magnetic weapons to control their population and (again in Sputnik) of having ordered Al Jazeera to film a staged chemical attack in Syria.
Al Jazeera denied publicly this last allegation and labelled it as defamation. It fitted into a continued pattern of disinformation concerning the chemical attack in Syria, with pro-Kremlin outlets labelling this a false flag operation, denying that it happened at all and claiming that another chemical attack will be “staged in Idlib by the White Helmets”. Read more about the pro-Kremlin disinformation campaign concerning Syria here and here.
The last week before the second round of the French Presidential elections also saw further attacks on Emmanuel Macron. A Czech outlet claimed both that the Jewish Congress does not want to allow Macron to win, which means we will see further terror attacks; and, just a couple of days later, that the “Rothschild dominated mainstream has decided that Macron must win”. The same outlet claimed that Macron called Marine Le Pen an “enemy of the state” – although it was actually a different candidate, Benoit Hamon. Another outlet claimed that the country cannot be described as a liberal democracy and that the next President had been chosen in advance by the French “establishment”.
