The Russian Foreign Ministry said that in late 2021-early 2022, the Western media launched a disinformation campaign of unprecedented scale and sophistication to spread fakes that Russia was allegedly preparing an invasion of the territory of Ukraine.

The media campaign, the Foreign Ministry noted, is aimed at discrediting Russia's demands for security guarantees and justifying Western geopolitical goals. 

The department stressed that the media participating in the campaign spread outright disinformation and engaged in manipulations in order to “introduce the thesis about Moscow’s aggressive intentions into public opinion.”

“At the same time, the detailed and reasoned explanations of Russian officials were ignored, in particular, repeated assurances of Russia’s commitment to a peaceful diplomatic settlement of the crisis in Ukraine on the basis of the Minsk Package of Measures, references to the national sovereign right of states to redeploy their armed forces on their territory, as well as statements about the defensive nature of the military exercises conducted jointly with the armed forces of Belarus, ”the ministry stressed.

At the same time, these media ignore Moscow's concerns about the West moving its military infrastructure to Russia's borders, sending weapons and military instructors to Ukraine, as well as conducting dangerous military exercises, the ministry noted.

“In fact, the Western media served the political order of their governments, co-ordinated replicating false information, participating in a full-scale information war,” the Foreign Ministry stressed.

Thus, the Foreign Ministry recalled that the American edition of The Washington Post published an article stating that “Russian missiles and aircraft are likely to hit targets deep in Ukraine, and Kiev will respond by trying to kill as many Russian soldiers as quickly as possible in border battles, how is that possible."

At the same time, the material is presented as if “everything has already been decided”.

The New York Times published an article deliberately distorting the data on the maneuvers of the Russian armed forces on the territory of the Russian Federation: “Moscow began to gather troops in such a way that it indicated a plan to invade Ukraine through the territory of Belarus.”

At the same time, Bloomberg has already twice been marked with “fakes” on the Ukrainian topic - the agency posted an article about the alleged request of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Vladimir Putin not to launch an invasion of Ukraine during the Olympic Games.

This information was denied by the Chinese Embassy in Moscow, Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov and the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova.

  • Maria Zakharova

  • globallookpress.com

  • © MFA Russia

As noted in the Foreign Ministry, after some time, Bloomberg published news on its website with the headline “Live: Russia invades Ukraine” - it was deleted, and the editors apologized and explained the message as a “mistake”.

At the same time, according to experts, one such piece of news, if circulated into quotes, could bring down the economies of many countries and lead to serious geopolitical consequences for the whole world, the diplomatic department added. 

“Some of the “fakes” of the American media are simply taken from nowhere, but at the same time they are compiled in the worst traditions of propaganda and cannot be called anything other than manipulation,” the Foreign Ministry stressed.

An example is CNN's story about the alleged interception of Russian officials "discussing" that "an invasion of Ukraine would be more costly and difficult than Putin and other Kremlin leaders think."

Fake news about Russia's "invasion" of Ukraine was actively spread by the German, British and French media.

Thus, the German magazine Bild posted, in particular, a “map of the invasion” of Ukraine describing the plans of the Russian armed forces, as well as data “about the brutal puppet regime that the Kremlin wants to establish in Ukraine.”

The British media, the Foreign Ministry noted, use the same tricks as their NATO counterparts: they use words such as “inevitable”, sin in a one-sided presentation, engage in substitution of concepts, trying to present the military exercises of Russian and Belarusian troops as evidence of plans to invade to Ukraine.

The French magazine Le Point writes in an article: “The sound of boots on the eastern border brings Ukraine closer to the West, and the most determined take up arms.”

The weekly L'Express cited "five scenarios for a possible Russian invasion."

The Canadian press, the department recalled, “abuses the right of invited experts to freedom of expression” and conducts all campaign “pumping” with the “opinion” mark, thereby effectively removing editorial responsibility for publishing frankly false information.

The fact that Russia is allegedly preparing to invade the territory of a neighboring state was also written by a number of Belgian media.

“In favor of the version that the media disinformation campaign is coordinated and controlled, is the fact that often the same theses are used in the media of countries in the same region,” the Foreign Ministry noted.

As an example, the agency cited media publications in Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, which, speaking of the Russian threat, "draw emotionally charged (and at the same time completely inappropriate) historical parallels."

Media in Poland and Romania also reported on the allegedly impending Russian aggression against Ukraine.

There are also cases of direct imposition by American officials of the agenda set in Washington, the Foreign Ministry reported, recalling that the US ambassador to Montenegro simply published his column in a number of Montenegrin daily newspapers, where he repeated the set of unfounded accusations against Moscow. 

“In another NATO state, Norway, the emphasis in the local media was placed on purely military-technical details, creating the impression that serious experts with access to classified data were involved in the preparation of publications,” the Foreign Ministry noted.

The materials devoted to the "Russian invasion" were published by the newspapers of Denmark, the Netherlands, and Iceland.

The editions of Italy, Spain, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Greece and Croatia "were limited mainly to reprints of the American media". 

“Special mention deserves the position of Western officials in the context of a massive disinformation campaign against Russia.

They avoid giving it a proper assessment in every possible way, thereby essentially confirming their involvement in “fakes” and stuffing, ”the department stressed.

At the same time, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, commenting on the statements of Washington representatives about the alleged plans of the Russian Federation regarding Ukraine, said that they demonstrate the interest in the conflict of the United States itself.

“The hysteria of the White House is more revealing than ever.

The Anglo-Saxons need a war.

At any price.

Provocations, disinformation and threats are a favorite method of solving their own problems, ”Zakharova said.