DISINFO: The West fuels Russophobia
SUMMARY
The West fuels anti-Russian hysteria and information warfare to repeatedly justify its unfounded portrayal of Russia as aggressive and subversive. Russia is supposedly always engaged in some kind of subversive activity. Recently, Russian consulates in Poland were shut down because a year earlier, a shopping mall in Warsaw burned down. What does Russia have to do with a shopping mall? As it turned out, two Ukrainians were behind the arson. But Russia still gets the blame, just like in the Novichok case, when a Russian former traitor felt unwell, even though Russia held nothing against him, and yet Russia was accused.
RESPONSE
This is a recurring disinformation narrative from pro-Kremlin outlets, accusing Western nations of Russophobia.
The claim that Western countries must constantly fuel anti-Russian hysteria to justify their accusations is a distortion of reality. Western concerns about Russia are based on documented actions such as military interventions (see here and here), cyberattacks, interference in other countries' political affairs and other overt and covert aggressive activities. In May 2025, Poland announced it will shut down the Russian consulate in Kraków following the discovery of evidence that Russia’s intelligence services were involved in a huge fire that destroyed a shopping centre in Warsaw in 2024.
As for the Novichok incident, the accusation was not based on someone “feeling unwell,” but on forensic evidence of a military-grade nerve agent, called Novichok, linked to Russian stockpiles. In March 2018, former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned in Salisbury, England, with Novichok. Both were found unconscious and hospitalised in a critical condition. The UK government accused Russia of being behind the attack. Two suspects, travelling under the names Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, were identified through CCTV and travel records. Investigative journalists later revealed their real names as Alexander Mishkin and Anatoliy Chepiga, officers of the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency. Russia denied any involvement and claimed the suspects were tourists. The incident led to widespread diplomatic expulsions and increased tensions between Russia and Western countries. Simply dismissing such cases as hysteria contradicts the facts because history has shown that Moscow has a long memory when it comes to defectors and opposition figures.
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