DISINFO: The United States occupied Europe
SUMMARY
European politics today is in the deepest moral and intellectual decline.
Having created the mechanisms of NATO for its own needs, the United States, in fact, occupied Europe. NATO expansion allows Washington to put additional territories of Eastern Europe under its control.
RESPONSE
A recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the alleged lost sovereignty of the EU and its member states (more examples). Pro-Kremlin outlets often portray European states as vassals, puppet states or colonies of the US and NATO. The article also contains a recurring disinformation narrative portraying NATO as an aggressive organisation, aiming to encircle Russia.
Contrary to the claim, the European Union is a sovereign entity created by the voluntary initiative of European nations.
EU Member States are sovereign countries and make sovereign decisions about their own internal, economic, foreign and security policies. The European Union is explicit on the subject of national sovereignty: “the Member States all remain sovereign and independent states, they have decided to pool some of their 'sovereignty' in areas where it makes sense to work together.” The US is an important ally to the EU but EU policy is not determined by the US.
NATO is a defensive alliance with primary aims to maintain peace and safeguard the independence, security and territorial integrity of its members. NATO constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party.
Voluntarily, Central and Eastern European countries began seeking NATO membership in the early 1990s. This is an expression of free national political will. Furthermore, the claim about NATO "expansion" misrepresents the process of NATO enlargement. NATO does not "expand" but considers the applications of candidate countries that want to join.
Read similar disinformation cases claiming that EU and NATO member states are subordinate to the US, while the US has long regarded the EU as a kind of protectorate, that lined up with the US, the EU never took independent decisions, that Europe is a colony of the United States, that When the US orders, the EU complies, and that Relations between the EU and US are relationship between a hegemon and vassals.