Diplomatic niceties and misinformation on the Ukrainian crisis

Audio 03:30

French President Emmanuel Macron (right) meets Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) in Moscow, February 7, 2022. © SPUTNIK / AFP

By: Sophie Malibeaux

3 mins

A reinforced Russian military presence on the borders of Ukraine, joint military maneuvers in Belarus, all the ingredients are there to increase tension in Europe.

Hence the intense diplomatic ballet led by France, which chairs the European Union until June.

But when disinformation gets involved, it becomes difficult to get an idea of ​​the real situation.

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At the height of tensions between Russia and NATO, information is valuable but fake news proliferates.

We have seen the whole range of misinformation unfold on social networks about the results obtained or not by Emmanuel Macron during his meeting with President Putin.

More or less intentional errors of interpretation, misunderstood diplomatic subtleties, extrapolations from official declarations when they are not invented quotations.

For example, the more than approximate quotation made by the president of the Republican People's Union, François Asselineau, potential presidential candidate, guest on RFI Thursday February 10, the very day of the kick-off of the maneuvers in Belarus.  

Macron said that he had obtained from President Putin the cessation of military maneuvers etc… he was denied within a minute by the Kremlin, that is to say that he appeared to be a storyteller

Pierre Asselineau guest on RFI on February 10, 2022

But President Macron never said that, this quote does not appear anywhere.

The maneuvers started as planned on February 10 for ten days.

Emmanuel Macron never asked the Russians to give it up.

What the French president claims to have obtained are guarantees that there would be no further escalation.

As for the denial of the Kremlin mentioned by Mr. Asselineau, it is in fact a clarification of the spokesman of the Kremlin Dmitri Peskov who reacted on February 8, to the allegations according to which the Russian president would have made concessions and accepted that there are no new military initiatives on the outskirts of Ukraine.

It is a denial that targets certain interpretations of the results of this meeting.

Candidate François Asselineau is not alone in relaying erroneous quotes, wrongly attributed to Emmanuel Macron but also to his Russian interlocutors.

We will quote the tweet of the lawyer Juan Branco qualifying the diplomatic sequence of " 

 " and relaying the denial of the Kremlin in a misleading way.

Too voluntarist communication on the part of the Elysée?

It is obvious that the Elysée wanted to make the most of these mediation efforts.

To imply that President Macron would have received assurances that Russian troops would return once the maneuvers were over, as suggested by an adviser to the Elysée, was an inaccurate way of putting it.

This is what prompted the Kremlin to rectify: there would have been no new explicit commitment from Vladimir Putin on this point, because it was always expected that these troops would return at one time or another to their bases in Russia after the maneuvers in Belarus.

" 

 ," recalled spokesman Dmitri Peskov quoted by Reuters on February 8, after the meeting.

" 

 ", noted this Thursday, February 10 Jean-Yves le Drian on public radio France Inter.

While saying he was concerned about what he described as " 

 ", the head of French diplomacy reaffirmed " 

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