Verlorene Souveränität

https://euvsdisinfo.eu/key-narratives-in-pro-kremlin-disinformation-part-3-lost-sovereignty/

KEY NARRATIVES IN PRO-KREMLIN DISINFORMATION PART 3: ‘LOST SOVEREIGNTY’

Narrative number 3: ‘Lost Sovereignty’
Russian and pro-Kremlin disinformation sources like to claim that certain countries are no longer truly sovereign. Back in 2015, a cartoonist for the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti illustrated this idea with an image:(opens in a new tab) Uncle Sam is turning up the flame on a gas stove, forcing Europeans to jump up and down while crying for sanctions against Russia.

Since then, there have been many more examples of this narrative proliferating in pro-Kremlin outlets: for example, Ukraine is ruled by foreigners and the Baltic states are not really countries. Pro-Kremlin disinformation outlets also claim that with their accession to NATO, Finland and Sweden are now about to lose their sovereignty and that they are acting under foreign (US, NATO) pressure. Further examples for this narrative abound: the EU is directed by Washington, Japan is a vassal state, Germany is an occupied territory, decisions in Ukraine aren’t made by its president but by the US, and so on.

Pro-Kremlin outlets even uses a specific vocabulary to define states that are ‘not-sovereign’: ‘limitrophes’, or frontier territories providing subsistence and subservience to their masters. The Polish edition of the pro-Kremlin propaganda outlet RuBaltica explains:

‘There are real states, which are capable of implementing all state functions, and then there is geopolitical scum or fictional countries that have formal attributes of statehood but which are not real states. These countries include the post-Soviet limitrophe states separating Russia from the West. The pseudo-elites of these countries are not able to respond to any serious historical challenge such as overcoming the migration crisis, protecting the border and fighting the epidemic. They keep asking Western Europe and the United States for help because they cannot cope on their own. These countries are ruled by puppets – they are able only to speak about “stopping Russia” and vote for anti-Russian resolutions in the EU and UN.’

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