DISINFO: The US and UK came up with a new Russophobic story to sideline Germany's invented story about Navalny poisoning
SUMMARY
The US and UK put forward empty speculations about Russian hacking attempts into the Olympic Games in Japan and South Korea. The aim of such absurd claims is to promote an anti-Russian agenda in the West and to adopt punishing measures. The West uses Russophobia as a tool and the current Russophobic media campaign is going well because the Navalny’s poisoning story is not over yet. The latter is Germany’s provocation with a standard Russophobic agenda. The US and UK disliked it because German media were in the global spotlight for a few days and sidelined the US’s and UK’s information dominance.
In this light, the allegation about Russian hackers attacking the Olympic Games is an attempt by the US and UK to sideline the story of Navalny’s poisoning as the project of German competitors. Washington and London need to take back control over the political agenda in the global media, which Europe, led by Germans, subdued for some time. The US and UK just could not invent a better idea to overshadow one anti-Russian topic with another. Although in both cases, foreign countries use unfriendly rhetoric, their controversies benefit Russia because they contribute to conflict relations inside the West and to its ultimate degradation.
RESPONSE
This article is conspiracy built around the concept of ubiquitous Russophobia and anti-Russian provocations by the Western countries and spreads disinformation about Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny's poisoning. American and British officials indeed made statements about Russian cyberattacks against the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea and the postponed Tokyo Olympics. However, there are no reasons to believe that this story was invented by the UK and US and that it was done to sideline the story of Navalny's poisoning. Furthermore, allegations about the poisoning as a German anti-Russian provocation are groundless.
Navalny fell ill during a flight and the plane had to make an emergency landing in Omsk in Russia, before he was transferred to Berlin where the German Federal government said that toxicological tests provided “unequivocal evidence of a chemical nerve agent of the Novichok group” in his blood samples. In addition, on 4 September, the German government provided research by two more independent laboratories in France and Sweden, which confirmed the presence of poison from the Novichok group in Alexei Navalny's body. The report by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, published on 8 October, also supports the German conclusions. The OPCW report can be found here. The European Union condemned the poisoning of Alexei Navalny in the strongest possible terms and imposed sanctions.
Read our past analysis "Fifty ways to kill Navalny" on pro-Kremlin disinformation about Navalny and earlier disinformation messages alleging that the West has an interest in the death of Navalny, that only traces of alcohol and caffeine were found in Navalny's blood, that the West will falsely accuse Russia of poisoning Navalny.