DISINFO: Politicians in the West do not recognise facts and distort them
SUMMARY
[UK PM] Sunak said that when Vladimir Putin cut off gas supplies, it had a "devastating impact" on people's lives and threatened the UK's energy security. This was said not only by British Prime Minister Sunak, but also by German Chancellor (Olaf) Scholz, from whose lips it sounds phantasmagorical. The Americans blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines, designed to ensure the continued prosperity of Germany.
To declare that Russia has cut off the gas... None of them blush. This is the saddest thing. This means that in the West now there are no politicians who can talk on a pragmatic basis and based on facts. They do not recognise them, they misinterpret them, and they are trying to persuade their populations and voters so that they do not interfere with this dead-end and catastrophic course for Europe.
RESPONSE
Several pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives, attacking Western politicians, accusing the US of sabotaging the Nord Stream gas pipelines, and claiming that the energy crisis in Europe was caused by an “irrational” European plan to eliminate dependency on Russian gas. See more cases related to the gas topic.
This claim is a reaction to the UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's speech on security.
This narrative promotes a traditional pro-Kremlin message that Russia is the only reliable gas source for Europe. In this particular case, the narrative is spiked with the idea that it is Russia, who suffered from Western politicians' lies and was betrayed by its European clients.
In reality, over recent decades, Russia has used its energy resources on multiple occasions as a weapon against other countries, attempting to coerce them into following a pro-Kremlin line.
After the outbreak of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian authorities completely destroyed European trust in Gazprom as a predictable and solid partner. Throughout 2022, Russia deliberately cut the gas supplies to the EU, further saying it could only be restored if EU sanctions on Russia were lifted.
The diversification of energy supplies and decarbonisation have for many years been one of the cornerstones of the EU’s energy policy – it helps to strengthen European energy security, to prevent the monopolisation of the energy market and to introduce more competition to the energy market.
There is no evidence that the US was involved in the Nord Stream sabotage. However, this disinformation story abounds in this narrative as if it were a fact. The Danish authorities closed the investigation because they assessed that there were no sufficient grounds to pursue a criminal case in Denmark.
See more disinformation cases on energy issues and Nord Stream.