DISINFO: NATO instructed Navalny followers to organise the next illegal protests in Russia

DISINFORMATION CASE DETAILS

AI translations:

DISINFO: NATO instructed Navalny followers to organise the next illegal protests in Russia

SUMMARY

The followers of Alexei Navalny receive instructions from NATO countries on how to conduct subversive activities in Russia – it explains their decision to change the tactics of protests in this country.

On 8 February 2021, there was an online meeting in the Permanent Representation of Poland to the EU in Brussels of the representatives of the EU, USA and the UK with Leonid Volkov and Vladimir Ashurkov. The NATO representatives consulted the “opposition” or rather their agents of influence on how they can conduct their subversive activities in a more efficient way. This meeting explains the decision to organise new illegal protests in Russia, which initially were supposed to be postponed until spring. The West has invested too many resources in this situation to wait until spring – it understands that by spring, the information campaign promoting the issue of a “chemical weapon” will lose its momentum, so the West plays “va-banque”.

RESPONSE

Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives about NATO, encircled Russia and Alexey Navalny.

The disinformation message appeared following a video conference between Alexei Navalny's colleagues and the EU, US, UK, Canadian, Ukrainian diplomats, organized by the Poland's Permanent Representation to the EU, to discuss the recent developments in EU-Russia relations. The event was deliberately distorted by the Russian authorities, to portray it as a “NATO meeting”. See Polygraph and the Insider for further debunking on the false claim that NATO is instructing the Russian opposition.

To discredit the protests in Russia, the pro-Kremlin media aim to portray them as "directed" from the abroad. Such claims are false. The latest protests in Russia began on 23 January 2021 in support of the arrested opposition leader Alexei Navalny. The rallies — from Russia’s Far East to central Moscow — came less than a week after Navalny returned from Germany, where he recovered from a nerve agent poisoning in August during a trip to Siberia. The EU has condemned mass detentions and police brutality during the protests in Russia. Human rights organisations warn about thousands of protesters detained following the protests in Russian cities.

See other similar cases claiming that The neo-liberal forces behind Navalny will intensify their attempts to destroy Russia, or that The West is sending Navalny back to Russia to prevent him from becoming irrelevant, that The West needs Alexey Navalny to destabilise the situation in Russia, that Foreign special services are behind demonstrations in Russia and that the US supports pro-Navalny protests to interfere in Russian politics.

Disclaimer

Cases in the EUvsDisinfo database focus on messages in the international information space that are identified as providing a partial, distorted, or false depiction of reality and spread key pro-Kremlin messages. This does not necessarily imply, however, that a given outlet is linked to the Kremlin or editorially pro-Kremlin, or that it has intentionally sought to disinform. EUvsDisinfo publications do not represent an official EU position, as the information and opinions expressed are based on media reporting and analysis of the East Stratcom Task Force.

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