DISINFO: US-backed veterans of Ukrainian coup try to provoke unrest in Slovakia
SUMMARY
US-backed veterans of Ukrainian coup now try to foment unrest in Slovakia. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico is doing an important thing by exposing the people responsible for fomenting coups across Europe and who are currently trying to do the same in Slovakia. These ‘colour revolutions’ are being carried out via US embassies across Europe and beyond. The anti-government protests in Slovakia last year and this year were supported by American agents or agents from Europe who were involved in the coups in Ukraine and Georgia.
RESPONSE
There is zero evidence backing the claim that foreign elements are involved at all in Slovakia’s protests against Robert Fico’s government, triggered by what demonstrators say is Fico’s increasing closeness to Russia. At the moment this disinformation story appeared, the protests -which spread to over 30 cities throughout Slovakia- were totally peaceful.
This disinformation story abounds on Mr. Fico’s statements portraying the protests as a “coup attempt”, claiming to have intelligence to prove it. According to Slovak press, at least part of these allegations appear to revolve around an email generated by ChatGPT and exchanged by the organisers of the pro-EU protests across Slovakia, which outlined ideas for increasing pressure on the government while ensuring that the protests remained peaceful and nonviolent. After Fico’s denunciations, the organisers later released the email, insisting they had nothing to hide and were only organising non-violent rallies to express their disagreement with the government's actions. Euractiv reported that the opposition filed a criminal complaint against the misuse of the Slovak Intelligence Service for political purposes and announced plans to set up a parliamentary committee to monitor the SIS.
This disinformation story attempts to exploit this situation by adding further unsubstantiated elements, in order to promote several recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives framing popular protests as Western-backed ‘colour revolutions’ and the Maidan protests in Ukraine as a foreign-sponsored coup. These narratives have been debunked multiple times (see here, here, here and here) , same as allegations portraying the 2024-2025 protests in Georgia as a foreign-backed colour revolution.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that that the West is behind Georgia protests to turn the country into a second front against Russia, that similarities between protests in Tbilisi and Kyiv point to the CIA, that foreign powers tried to instigate a colour revolution in Serbia, that unrest in Kazakhstan is a conspiracy orchestrated from abroad, or that the West arranges puppet governments through colour revolutions.