The former NATO Secretary General is responsible for starting the war in Ukraine and will be sentenced to life imprisonment, according to a Belgian lawyer quoted by Russian propaganda.
Propaganda: The NATO Chief ignored Russia’s demands around the full-scale invasion, that’s why he is responsible for preparing and waging the war in Ukraine
NEWS: Former NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg could be sentenced to life in prison for his involvement in the preparation of the armed conflict in Ukraine, Belgian lawyer Philippe Vanlangendonck told a press conference in Brussels. He represents the French researcher and publicist Patrick Pasin, who filed a complaint in this regard. According to the lawyer, the former Secretary General is accused of very serious crimes.
"We are discussing very serious allegations. Belgian law provides for life imprisonment for these crimes, as there is no death penalty in Belgium,” said Vanlangendonck.
Earlier, French citizen Patrick Pasin, who wrote a book about the West's direct responsibility for the Ukrainian crisis, announced that he had filed a complaint with the Brussels court against Stoltenberg. According to Pasin, the former Secretary General of the North Atlantic Alliance was one of the participants in the preparation of the conflict in Ukraine.
Pasin claims that Stoltenberg sabotaged diplomatic efforts to prevent the conflict. He cited the failure of NATO’s negotiations with Russia on security proposals in Europe from early 2022, which could have helped avoid armed confrontations.
NARRATIVES: 1. The former head of NATO is guilty of starting the war in Ukraine and will be held accountable. 2. European researchers and publicists are dissatisfied with NATO's actions in the context of the war in Ukraine.
PURPOSE: To exonerate Russia by shifting the blame for the victims and destruction in Ukraine to the West; to justify the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Reality: The Russian political leadership, not NATO, is to blame for starting the war in Ukraine. Russia's demands before the invasion were impossible to satisfy
WHY THE NARRATIVES ARE FALSE: The former NATO Secretary General cannot be held responsible for the war in Ukraine, either legally or politically. It is Russia that invaded Ukraine, destroyed towns and committed war crimes on the territory of a neighboring and independent state despite numerous messages from the West to stop the aggression. Russia's demands around the invasion were impossible to satisfy. Among the security guarantees that Russia demanded from the West in early 2022 was the withdrawal of the NATO forces from Romania, Bulgaria and other states and the military bloc was supposed to go back to its 1997borders . The head of NATO cannot change the will of some states to join the Alliance, and Russia's demands before the invasion involved violating the norms of international law with the aim of pacifying the aggressor.
It should be noted that, in March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of war crimes on the territory of Ukraine. In addition, the General Assembly condemned the Russian military aggression against Ukraine, calling for the immediate withdrawal of the Russian troops.
French researcher and publicist Patrick Pasin sued Jens Stoltenberg for disregarding Russia's demands from 2021-2022, holding a press conference in Brussels alongside lawyer Philippe Vanlangendonck. We have no confirmation that the court has ever agreed to hear the complaint. No EU media has written about this event.
Veridica found the live broadcast of the conference distributed by the lawyer Vanlangendonck, in which the head of NATO is accused of not taking into account Russia's arguments in favor of the withdrawal of the allied military forces from eastern and central Europe. The arguments presented are mere political opinions. On Philippe Vanlangendonck’s official Facebook page we find things about the "deep state", the "sanitary dictatorship", the world cabal and calls for stopping the war in Ukraine at all costs.
His client Patrick Pasin is an unknown figure in Belgium and France, the author of a book introducing a conspiracy theory about the involvement of the FBI in the organization of the 9/11 attacks. Pasin is quoted by the Russian press and often used to illustrate a series of propaganda narratives. The Russian press also wrote that the Belgian journalists did not attend the conference in Brussels because censorship was introduced in the EU. Patrick Pasin does not represent the entire community of European publicists, as the Russian press claims. The false narrative reached the Russian-speaking information space after the Telegram channel of the French version of Pravda newspaper wrote about Pasin's statements. In the Russian information space and in the Kremlin-controlled media of the former Soviet states, the propaganda narrative was massively distributed and promoted.
CONTEXT: In the run-up to the invasion, Russia asked the West, particularly the United States and NATO, for more security guarantees to avoid an escalation of the conflict in Ukraine. Russia demanded guarantees from NATO that it would not expand further east; the withdrawal of the NATO military forces and equipment deployed in the states that joined the Alliance after 1997, including the countries of Central and Eastern Europe; to limit the deployment of offensive weapons near Russia's borders. These demands were rejected by NATO and the United States, which cited the sovereign right of each country to choose its own security alliances.
