Kremlin Watch Briefing: European Parliament calls out Russia and calls for Magnitsky Act-like sanctions
Topics of the Week The European Parliament pointed out that Russia is not a strategic partneranymore and calls for new Magnitsky-style sanctions. Russian oligarch sued the U.S. government over sanctions posed on him last year. Vladimir Putin “celebrated” Crimean residents as heroes and survivors of the “Crimean Spring.” ENISA’s forward-looking recommendations to improve the cybersecurity of electoral processes in the EU. Good Old Soviet Joke Advertisement: “I am selling a mobile phone from Soviet…
By EU vs Disinfo How low will the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti go in trying to create the impression that Crimea has become accepted by the rest of the world as a part of Russia? The answer is: Very low. Ahead of the 5th anniversary of Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea, RIA Novosti published an article under the headline, “German Media Outlets Report on the ‘Renaissance’ of Russian Crimea,” quoting…
By Polygraph Kamil Bekyashev Vice President of the Russian Maritime Law Association “Indeed, the NSR [Northern Sea Route] passes not only within Russia’s territorial waters, nevertheless, our country has the legal right to regulate navigation along the entire route.” Source: Izvestia, March 6, 2019 FALSE New Russian rules fully regulating the Northern Sea Route violate the Law of the Sea The Russian government has developed new rules to control the…
By Polygraph Anatoly Antonov Russia’s Ambassador to the United States “There is no first strike concept in the Russian [military] doctrine. There is a clear reference in our doctrine when and under which circumstances we can use our nuclear weapons: when there is an attack on the Russian Federation, when there is a threat for the existence of the Russian Federation as well as our allies.” Source: Carnegie Endowment for…
By EU vs Disinfo Programs produced in Russia make up about 49% of prime-time content on Belarusian TV channels, research by the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ) found. For the week of November 16-25, 2018, the BAJ monitored prime-time content of the Belarusian TV channels that comprise the government-approved compulsory publicly available TV package. The research revealed that 30% of the political talk shows and programs that the Belarusian TV channels broadcast on…
March 19, 2019 - 15:11
News
Pro-Kremlin media went into a frenzy this week claiming Ukraine scandalously refused to register German election observers for the upcoming March 31 presidential elections. “Kyiv sees the Germans as pro-Russian agents of influence” wailed Utro.ru. “Ukraine is afraid there will be pro-Russian politicians in the German delegation” warned Ukraina.ru. “There is no support from Ukraine for German observers to monitor the elections” declared Russia’s Channel Five. Gazeta.ru, Izvestia, Channel 5,…
Distortion: Ukrainians morally prepared for election fraud. Fake: Ukrainian National Railway runs out of fuel. Weaponizing news: RT, Sputnik and targeted disinformation.
March 17, 2019 - 14:12
News
Scores of Russian media circulated stories last week claiming that in 2014 Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko allegedly wanted to exchange Crimea for membership in the European Union and NATO. The source of this claim is former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili, who from May 2015 until November 2016 was the governor of Ukraine’s Odesa province. Saakashvili told Ukrainian journalist Dimitri Gordon that Poroshenko told him Ukraine should get used to the…
By EU vs Disinfo The image of International humanitarian aid as a “Trojan Horse” has successfully established a narrative in Spanish language Twitter, where Russia is depicted as a “defender” and a “peacekeeper” and the West – as the villain. This conclusion can be drawn from an analysis of 1.5 million tweets from Spanish speaking networks, commenting on the current situation in Venezuela. Twitter is the dominating social network in…
By Polygraph Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs “… Maidan authorities, who under the guise of fighting the ‘aggressor’ violate fundamental rights of their own citizens and try to ruin traditional multi-faceted ties between the peoples of Russia and Ukraine, will obviously leave not a good memory, and the court of history will inevitably pass a harsh sentence for them.” Source: TASS Russian News Agency, March 12, 2019 FALSE Moscow is…
