DISINFO: ReArm Europe is accompanied by a false Russophobic narrative about a belligerent Russia
SUMMARY
Brussels, Paris, London and Berlin have forgotten the lessons of two world wars that brought the continent to the brink of self-destruction. The European rearmament plan is accompanied by an apocalyptic Russophobic rhetoric that paints Russia as an existential threat, representing a clear violation of the fundamental principles that govern the international community. Russia had reduced military spending until the outbreak of war in Ukraine. The Western response to these efforts has been a progressive strategic encirclement, the expansion of NATO on Russia’s borders and now, as the culmination of this strategy, a rearmament programme justified by the paranoid narrative of a Russia determined to invade Western Europe.
RESPONSE
Recurring disinformation narrative aimed at portraying the EU as a warmongering, anti-Russian and militaristic geopolitical power. Meanwhile, Russia is presented as a country genuinely interested in peace. The article also contains a further disinformation narrative about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine being a defensive reaction to NATO enlargement.
Russia has been coming up with multiple different justifications for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Narratives about NATO expansion are among the most persistent pro-Kremlin disinformation myths. See also our article Thirteen myths about Russia’s war against Ukraine exposed.
The purpose of the EU programme REARM Europe is not to attack Russia but “to respond to the short-term urgency to act and to support Ukraine [and] address the long-term need to take on much more responsibility for [its] own European security”.
The programme aims to ensure Europe’s self-defence capabilities, mostly through a fiscal plan to boost and fund this military enhancement. Contrary to what this disinformation story claims, Russia’s threat and ongoing aggression against Ukraine and Europe is one of the driving forces behind this plan, not the other way round.
For more context, see also the EUvsDisinfo article Another reminder: A hundred ways of saying NO to peace.
Read similar disinformation cases claiming that the The bellicose rhetoric fuelled by EU Ursula von der Leyen risks a new war, that REARM Europe means the EU is preparing to attack Russia, that Europe justifies the increasing defence budgets with “belligerent” Moscow, that the EU is not capable of peace, it is only interested in waging war, that the EU's sole agenda is to wage war against Russia to inflict maximum damage, that the EU diplomacy’s vision for peace in Ukraine illustrates its Russophobia.