Russia did not interfere, for the benefit of Igor Dodon, in the parliamentary elections lost by the pro-Russian left parties in Chisinau, Ion Cristoiu writes in an article taken over by sputnik.md. Cristoiu goes even further beyond this false narrative and speculates that Maia Sandu and her PAS will fail miserably, as they are unable to implement reforms.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, wants to go to war with Russia, while Ukrainian society wants peace, the Russian state media writes, rehashing a number of false narratives about the conflict in Donbass. The narratives are based on certain user comments critical of the Ukrainian president on the social media accounts of the pro-Kremlin publication “Sharij.net”. Volodymyr Zelensky’s discourse on the need to create a powerful weapon in Europe was presented as a declaration of war.
Ukraine is facing a food crisis. Ukrainian children are already starving. Western corporations will destroy the agriculture and within a few years, the UN will be collecting humanitarian aid for the starving Ukrainian people, according to a new wave of false narratives disseminated by the Russian media.
The dialogue between the EU and Russia is blocked only because certain European countries have anti-Russian sentiments, and the sanctions imposed on Moscow are not justified, according to false narratives released by the Moscow media and the Russian Foreign Ministry, including directly through the voice of Minister Sergei Lavrov. The narratives, which are not new, were reactivated after several EU heads of state, gathered at the European Council meeting, rejected the Franco-German proposal to hold a summit with Vladimir Putin.
Ever since 2014, the Russian state press has been promoting the narrative about Ukraine as a false state, trying to question the need to comply with the rules of international law on territorial integrity and the inviolability of the borders of independent states. The said narrative was recently resumed by the former adviser to the President of Russia, Vladislav Surkov, in an interview with the ‘Financial Times’, translated and actively promoted by the Russian press.
Transnistria is currently under a blockade imposed by the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine, behind which are the political allies of president Maia Sandu. The narratives about the worsening situation in Transnistria are not uncommon, and some of them actually caution against a possible conflict in the region. But this time, the Russian State Duma is behind the disinformation.
The West used journalist Roman Protasevich to organize the protests in Belarus, following the model of the “color revolutions”, and these could take place because Lukashenko undermined the Russian identity of the Belarusian people. Such false narratives are promoted by a former Ukrainian officer who fled to Russia, and are part of a discourse designed to maintain Moscow's sphere of influence.
Former officers with the so-called “power structures” in the Republic of Moldova have intervened in the election campaign to express concern with the developments at home, but also to warn that foreign powers have access to external information. The narratives are part of the anti-Western rhetoric employed by pro-Russian political parties in Chișinău in the election campaign.
The Republic of Moldova is part of the Russian world and shares a history with Russia spanning hundreds of years. Today, Russia is Moldova’s top strategic partner, and the country that has ensured its security for the last 30 years, helping it prevent a war. Ria Novosti has picked up on the narratives from a message sent by former president, Igor Dodon, with the aim of highlighting his personal relation with the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, ahead of the early parliamentary election scheduled to take place on July 11, 2021 in the Republic of Moldova.
Ukraine is a neo-Nazi state, used by the West as an instrument against Russia, but its population does not want a real rapprochement with NATO. These false narratives have been promoted by Moscow for years, especially through the media channels it controls; this time, the one who resumed them was President Vladimir Putin himself.
Romania is one step away from annexing the Republic of Moldova: it controls its foreign trade, it grants Romanian citizenship to Moldovans, and Maia Sandu is ready to reenact the unification, with Parliament’s help. This latest narrative surfaced in Russia and has been picked up by Moldovan media as well. The author of the disinformation claims Moscow should intervene to prevent the Republic of Moldova from being “swallowed”.
Maia Sandu grants Syrians the citizenship of the Republic of Moldova, while Moldovans are leaving the country, writes Komsomolskaya Pravda, which publishes a presidential decree granting citizenship to nine people. Thus, a narrative is resumed from the 2016 presidential elections when fake news was spread that 30 thousand Syrian refugees would be brought to the Republic of Moldova.
Maia Sandu has created an “anticorruption” structure in order to eliminate from public life and the administrative apparatus the politicians and officials that are inconvenient, according to a false narrative spread by Sputnik. The said structure - the Independent Anticorruption Advisory Committee – is allegedly controlled by the West.
Father Zenovie, the abbot of Nechit Monastery in Neamț County, told his congregation, during service, that people who got vaccinated will become zombies and their skin will turn to fish scales.
NATO allegedly intended to attack Belarus in response to the hijacking of the Ryanair plane, but the attack was canceled due to Turkish opposition and fears that Russia would intervene in support of Minsk. This false narrative was launched by the Russian and pro-Russian press in response to the wave of criticism generated in the West by Belarus' action.
Maia Sandu closed schools and laid off teachers, according to the Socialist Bogdan Țîrdea, one of the main promoters of disinformation in Chisinau. The narrative, which is contradicted by statistics, has been used before and is being reactivated now, in the context of the election campaign, in order to destabilize the party founded by Maia Sandu, PAS, which, according to opinion polls, is the favorite.
A potential victory of right-wing parties in the parliamentary election will spell economic and social disaster for the Republic of Moldova, leading to protests, Socialist leader, Igor Dodon, has said. The narrative has been disseminated and amplified by Ria Novosti press agency.
Due to its NATO membership, Romania has grown more vulnerable and is likely to become the target of organized crime and terrorism, and the car bomb attack in Arad is just the beginning. The false narrative is being promoted by Sputnik and is part of the pro-Kremlin publication’s efforts to undermine Romanians’ confidence in NATO.
According to a fake narrative published in Romania, the arrest of Belarusian journalist and activist Roman Protasevich by the regime of Alexander Lukashenko in Minsk is just a diversion staged by Washington to distract attention from waiving sanctions on the construction of the Russian-German Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.
Amidst growing tensions between Russia and Ukraine over the escalation of the conflict in Donbass since the beginning of spring, Russian state-controlled media continue to promote a number of fake narratives about the “coup” of 2014 in Ukraine, the independence of the self-proclaimed people’s republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, the civil war and Kiev’s belligerent actions towards the Russian-speaking population.
Socialist MP Petru Burduja, a close associate of party leader, Igor Dodon, claims that a potential alignment of the Republic of Moldova to the regime of sanctions imposed against Belarus would seriously impact the economy and the country’s population, due to the close economic ties between the two states. Statistics show, however, that trade with Belarus accounts for approximately 2% of the total volume of Moldova’s external trade.
Occidentul vrea să impună victoria pro-europenilor în alegerile din Republica Moldova pentru a atrage țara în lupta împotriva Rusiei. Această narațiune falsă este promovată în contextul unei campanii electorale în care forțe pro-rusești – socialiști și comuniști – caută să pună accentul pe chestiunea orientarea geopolitică a Moldovei.
The case of the Ryanair plane forced to land in Minsk, where a journalist on board was arrested, gave rise to a wave of false narratives in Belarus and Russia. Some are bordering on the absurd - the West has been accused of organizing the incident as a provocation - while others are just aimed at slightly changing the context in order to clear Minsk, which says, for example, that it did not force the crew to land.
The former deputy prime minister and envoy of the Kremlin to Moldova and Transnistria, Dmitry Rogozin, drew a parallel between the hijacking of the plane from Belarus, which had the journalist and activist Roman Protasevich on board, and his situation in July 2017, when he was on the list of Russian officials sanctioned by the EU for the annexation of Crimea and the war in Eastern Ukraine, and was therefore not allowed to land on EU territory or fly over its airspace.
The Russian MFA and media have accused Washington of creating inter-confessional strife all over the world, including Ukraine. They have criticized the reports of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom and the US State Department regarding freedom of conscience and the rights of the faithful.
The West has amped up its interference in the Republic of Moldova’s internal affairs, the spokesperson of the Russian MFA, Maria Zakharova, has told a press briefing. Similar accusations were also made during the campaign for the presidential election last year in autumn, despite the fact that Russian president Vladimir Putin wished Igor Dodon good luck and promised assistance for the Republic of Moldova with the campaign in full swing.
If the right-wing forces come to power, the Republic of Moldova will disappear as a state and the population will grow poorer, a Socialist deputy said. The narrative was launched in the context of the election campaign and was taken over by the PSRM affiliated press. The aim is to undermine citizens' trust in the efforts to join the European path and in the Republic of Moldova’s Western partners. At the same time, attempts are being made to discredit pro-European parties and discourage the diaspora from voting.
Russian propaganda is trying to portray former Social-Democrat leader Liviu Dragnea as the victim of the machinations of the US and Romanian justice systems
The Ukrainian state disappeared after 2014 and became a US and NATO colony, says an "independent" Finnish political scientist who, in reality, has close ties to Russia and the pro-Russian separatists in Donbass. It is an attempt to render legitimate, using the opinion of a Westerner, the narratives by means of which the Kremlin seeks to justify the uprising it supported in the neighboring state in an attempt to stop it from getting closer to the Euro-Atlantic structures.
Ukraine is ruled by fascist elements, who came to power in 2014. The narrative, already used for 7 years, was reactivated around May 9, when the "Russian world" marks the victory against Nazism. At the same time, there is an association with clashes that took place on May 9 between separatists and pro-government forces in Mariupol, a city that eventually remained under Kiev's control.
Maia Sandu is supported by far-right unionists in Romania and is a sympathizer of Marshal Ion Antonescu. The narrative that tries to associate the President of the Republic of Moldova with a war criminal and fascism is promoted in the context of the election campaign underway in Chisinau and Sandu, who is considered the driving engine of PAS, is seen as the main threat by pro-Russian parties.
The military exercises Moscow organizes in Crimea are legitimate since they take place on Russian soil, Russia’s Ambassador in Bucharest, Valery Kuzmin said in an interview, rehashing a number of Kremlin propaganda theses, including a few related to World War II.
