The EU will go into recession because of Ukraine and will hardly survive the harsh winters, according to Russian media propaganda narratives that intentionally misquote the IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva. In reality, she encouraged the Western states’ aspiration towards energy independence, stating that the EU risks going into recession due to the Russian aggression, but also other factors.
NEWS: “European states seeking to become energy independent from Russia will face a tough winter this year, International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said in an interview to CBS.
Georgieva noted that the situation in Ukraine “hit the EU very hard” and predicted that half of the member states will go into recession.
“We look at the response to the energy shock in Europe and we see that states are moving towards independence from Russian supplies. But a hard winter is coming, and the next one will be even harder, she said.
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As Vladimir Putin stated, the policy of containing and weakening Russia is a long-standing strategy of the US and its allies, but the sanctions have hit the world economy significantly. The main goal of the West is, according to the Russian president, to make life worse for millions of people”.
NARRATIVE: Because of Ukraine, the EU states will go into recession, and without Russian energy they will not make it through.
WHY THE NARRATIVE IS FALSE: In reality, the Russian state media is manipulating the public opinion by selectively using quotes from an interview the IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva gave to CBS NEWS. The coordinator of the largest financial organization in the world did not blame Ukraine, predicting a recession in the EU states. She said the economic problems were deepened by the Russian aggression against the Ukrainian state. The Moscow media omitted a number of important parts of the interview, calling the war in Ukraine a “situation”, “crisis”, “conflict” or “disagreement”. The impoverishment of European citizens is explained by the “situation in Ukraine”, as if Russia had nothing to do with it.
Moreover, the West is again criticized for having unilaterally introduced sanctions against Russia, the purpose of which is to “make life worse for millions of people”, and not to stop the military invasion of Ukraine, as it actually is. The EU has explained more than once that it has imposed a series of new sanctions against Russia in response to the unprovoked and unjustified military aggression against Ukraine that started on February 24, 2022 and the illegal annexation of Ukraine's Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. All these came in addition to the measures imposed on Russia since 2014 following the annexation of Crimea and the non-implementation of the Minsk agreements. The purpose of the sanctions is to economically weaken the aggressor in order to pacify in, in keeping with the norms of international law.
Kristalina Georgieva's statements regarding the problems the EU will face during the winter were also taken out of context. According to the Russian media, the head of the IMF understands that the Western countries trying to become energy independent from Russia will create problems for them, because winters will get harder. In reality, Georgieva stated: “Yes, there will be a tough winter, maybe the next one would be even tougher but freedom from dependence on Russia is coming.” So, the words of the IMF Managing Director were not uttered as a scare for the EU, as the Russian press wrote, but as an encouragement. Moreover, the reality itself contradicts the Russian theses regarding the energy crisis – at least for now, thanks to a mild winter, European gas storages are almost full, and the amount of energy obtained from other sources has increased significantly.
Veridica has debunked a series of fake news spread by the Russian media regarding the impact of the war in Ukraine on the West. According to Russian propaganda, the Germans are disappointed by the EU’s decision to financially support Ukraine , and the French are categorically rejecting the policy of sanctions against Russia and the assistance provided to Ukraine. In July 2022, the Russian propaganda was “proving” that US scholars support Putin’s ideas about Ukraine . The Russian press also wrote that foreign diplomats are fleeing Kyiv for fear of the Russian offensive. Various fake news has also been released about the Government in Kyiv voicing mistrust in its Western partners , or about terrorists trained on EU territory with a view to launching attacks against the civilian population in Donbas.
