Context

During his speech at the UN General Assembly’s High level Week, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov kicked off the festive season early and decorated a veritable disinformation-Christmas tree with a selection of anti-Western, anti-EU, and pro-Kremlin talking points.

Most of the time, Kremlin mouthpieces such as RT and Sputnik conceal their continued defiance of EU and US transmission bans.

This week, many things have a slight United Nations flavour, as world leaders gather in New York for the 79th UN General Assembly (UNGA) High-level Week.

September is a busy month at the United Nations. Delegations from all over the world flock to New York to take their seats at the General Assembly, the Mount Olympus of multilateral diplomacy.

This week, we focus on two acts illustrating the Kremlin’s playbook of deceit and manipulations. First, Putin in St. Petersburg issuing a kind-of warning to the West.

Pro-Kremlin disinformation outlets try to conjure insurmountable obstacles on Ukraine’s EU accession path, but despite all the Kremlin’s lies Ukraine has charted its future and the hope is real.

On 20 October, Moldovans will head to the polls to elect a new president. Also on the ballot: the country’s future relations with the European Union.

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Kremlin’s propaganda and disinformation machine has developed a whole category of narratives to spin the war.

The US presidential elections will take place on 5 November. And despite their protestations of indifference, warmongers in the Kremlin seem keenly interested in the results.

Russia’s ongoing war of conquest in Ukraine was the first point on the agenda when EU foreign and defence ministers met in Brussels on 29 and 30 August.