Photo: Raskrinkavanje.ba
The anti-Western narrative is an indispensable element of Russian propaganda, and its presence in WB region has intensified since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.
A few months ago, at the height of the war in Ukraine, numerous readers of news websites in Bosnia and the Western Balkans region read the news that “American soldiers are entering Ukraine”. Articles with sensationalist headlines and apocalyptic announcements of an “all-out war” informed the public that the United States of America had “as usually decided to engage in someone else’s war”.
The information about the entry of American soldiers into Ukraine was incorrect. However, like numerous similar “news”, it played an important role in supporting the propaganda narrative that Russia is not to be blamed for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but the Western countries that threaten it and protect the “Nazi” Ukrainian government.
After eight years of openly hostile relations between Russia and Ukraine, the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, announced on February 24, 2022 the beginning of Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine. As it was clear from day one, this was an invasion of a sovereign and independent state. In the eyes of the Russian president, the “culprits” for the attack on Ukraine are the West and Ukraine itself.
In the speech in which he announced the beginning of the attack in the early hours of the morning, Putin asserted that the expansion of NATO alliance is one of the “fundamental threats” to Russia. For decades, Putin pointed out, the efforts of the Russian Federation were aimed at preventing the expansion of NATO alliance near its borders, but such demands were not met.
“Further expansion of the NATO infrastructure and the beginning of military development on the territory of Ukraine are unacceptable for us. The problem, of course, is not NATO itself – it is only an instrument of US foreign policy”, Putin stated, among other things, in his speech.
In addition to the expansion of NATO alliance, Putin pointed out the alleged genocide committed by Ukraine in Donbas as a reason for the attack on Ukraine. The alleged spread of Nazism was highlighted as another reason, and he characterized his “special military operation” as an effort to “denazify” Ukraine, while accusing the West of supporting Nazism.
“What I think is important to emphasize additionaly is that the leading NATO countries, in order to achieve their own goals, support extreme nationalists and neo-Nazis in Ukraine,” Putin said in the February 24 speech.
Thus, it was clear from Putin’s speech in which direction the official Russian propaganda narrative would move, and that the narratives about “the West supporting Nazism in Ukraine”, as well as claims about the alleged threat from the expansion of NATO alliance, would be used to justify the invasion.
The western promise to Russia that NATO would not expand eastward: fact or fiction?
The insisting that NATO enlargement to Ukraine mustn’t be allowed isn’t new in Russia. This narrative has been present for more than three decades and it was promoted by numerous Soviet and Russian officials. It is based on the claim that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was promised by the United States of America (USA) and its allies back in 1990 that the NATO alliance will not expand to the former Warsaw Pact member-states.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, negotiations were held on the unification of Germany. The agreement concluded in September 1990 by both German republics, France, the USSR, the United Kingdom and the USA implied, among other things, accession of East Germany to the Alliance.
Nevertheless, this agreement, regardless of the claims that followed, did not regulate the expansion of NATO alliance to the east in any way, nor was it the West’s “promise” to the USSR that such a thing would not happen. Such an agreement, in fact, never existed. This was also confirmed by NATO on its official website: “None of the agreements signed by the United States of America, Europe and Russia included provisions on membership in NATO”, stated NATO.
Russia’s claims that it received such a promise are based on the statements of some Western leaders at the time. During the meeting held between US Secretary of State James Baker and USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev in February 1990, a few months before the formal signing of the aforementioned agreement, Baker stated while speaking about East Germany that “if we maintain our presence in Germany, which is part of NATO, there would be no extension of NATO jurisdiction for NATO forces even one inch to the east”.
Nevertheless, Baker and others have repeatedly clarified that these claims referred to East Germany and not the rest of Europe. Gorbachev himself pointed out that the topic of further NATO expansion wasn’t discussed in the years of mentioned negotiations.Â
“The topic of ‘NATO expansion’ was not discussed at all and was not raised in those years. Not a single Eastern European country raised the issue, even after the Warsaw Pact ceased to exist in 1991. Western leaders also did not initiate it. Another issue we raised was the subject of discussion: to ensure that NATO’s military structures will not expand and that additional Alliance troops will not be stationed on the territory of the former GDR after the unification of Germany. Baker’s statement, which you mention in your question, was made in that context. Kohl and Genscher talked about it. (…) In the agreement on the final settlement with Germany, it was written that no new military structures would be created in the eastern part of the country; no additional troops will be deployed; weapons of mass destruction would not be placed there. This has been followed all these years”, Gorbachev said in a 2014 interview with Russia Beyond, a site owned by the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.
Although it can’t be said with certainty if there was any discussion regarding the expansion of NATO beyond Germany, it is clear that there is no agreement on the non-expansion of the Alliance, which Moscow has been referring to for years.
Putin sees NATO expansion as a threat. The Russian Federation, led by Putin, tried to formally ensure that Ukraine did not become a NATO member. Thus, in September 2021, a few months before the invasion, Russia demanded from the US and its allies that Ukraine and other former Soviet states be prevented from joining the Alliance.
This request included the withdrawal of NATO forces from Eastern Europe, a ban on sending American and Russian warships and planes to the area where they can attack each other, and the cessation of NATO military exercises near the Russian border. Most of Russia’s demands were completely rejected by the West.
Although Western leaders claim the opposite, Putin has repeatedly claimed that there were various weapons from the West in Ukraine even before the start of the invasion. During the invasion, these allegations turned into claims about the alleged presence of NATO soldiers in Ukraine. Although NATO has not formally joined the fighting in Ukraine, alleged evidence that its soldiers are participating in the fighting is a frequent part of this propaganda narrative.
What are the other claims that Russia uses to support the anti-Western narrative?
In hundreds of media articles and posts on social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter and Telegram, disinformation has been published that seeks to “prove” the narrative of the “evil West” as the real culprit of the war in Ukraine.
From lies about arrests of NATO officers in the Ukrainian warzone, to fabricated statements by Ukrainian officials who blame NATO for the Russian invasion, and criticism of Western imperialism “garnished” with conspiracy theories about the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 2001 and the 2014 “military coup” in Ukraine – Russian propaganda tries to justify the invasion of Ukraine by pointing the finger at the West. In the “propaganda mix”, one could also find unfounded claims about ubiquitous Nazism in Western countries, accusations of destroying traditional values by promoting the rights of the LGBTIQA+ community, accusations of preparing a biological attack on Russia in cooperation with Ukraine, as well as accusations of inhumane treatment of Ukrainian refugees.
Since the claims in this narrative often come from Moscow and Russia in general, the same disinformation has spread around the world, in different languages. Various fact-checking platforms have written about them, and the members of Poynter’s International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) have also created a shared database with all analyses concerning the Russian invasion of Ukraine. As a result of this work, the website ukrainefacts.org was created, where you can find a folder with fact-check analyses done by platforms from different countries around the world.
As can be seen, a lot of disinformation concerning the war appeared in the same or similar form in at least two countries where IFCN has verified members. For example, the claim that a NATO officer was arrested on the battlefield in Ukraine, in addition to Bosnia and Herzegovina, also spread in Spain, Syria, Turkey, Ukraine, Taiwan, Romania, Georgia, Poland and Montenegro.
The same was the case with the claim that Finland moved dozens of armoured vehicles to the border with Russia, which was published by several media in the region. This allegation, it turned out, was falsely “proven” by a video showing the movement of armoured units, not to the border with Russia, but to the western Finland, due to a previously scheduled military exercise. In addition to Raskrinkavanje from Bosnia and Herzegovina, fact-checking platforms from Germany, Italy, Turkey, Ukraine, Belgium, the United States of America, Jordan, Slovakia, Romania, the Czech Republic, France, Serbia, Poland, Finland, Montenegro, Lithuania, Spain, Greece and other countries also wrote about this claim.
Therefore, the claims used to support this particular narrative through disinformation are globally present.
How does this narrative spread in Bosnia?
The sources of anti-Western disinformation in the context of the war in Ukraine in this language region are most often official or unofficial Russian sources. Claims about Nazism in Ukraine and the Western countries working to preserve it came directly from Vladimir Putin, and for the audience in the region, they were repeated countless times by public figures who already have a “history” of spreading disinformation and/or political propaganda (1, 2).Â
Manipulative statements of Russian officials, repackaged and reformulated, are presented as facts both on social networks and in the media (1, 2). Disinformation and photo montages from Russian Twitter profiles reach domestic Facebook pages, and Russian state media, such as Sputnik and RT, are a frequent source of news about the war for dozens of web portals from the region. When it comes to media in Bosnia and Western Balkans region, web portals such as Alternativna televizija, Prijedor 24h, Vijesti Srpske and Istok RS often convey (dis)information from Russian sources.
In addition to the media, the anti-Western and pro-Russian narrative was also spread by some public officials from BiH, mainly from Republika Srpska (1, 2, 3).
Within this narrative, in 24 analyses, Raskrinkavanje rated 240 articles from Bosnian and Western Balkans region media. Such articles most often contained more than one claim and therefore had multiple accuracy ratings (240 articles had a total of 344 ratings).
The largest number of articles (137) was rated by Raskrinkavanje as fake news, of which 21 were original articles, and the remaining 116 were republished by other sources. Moreover, 69 articles were rated as “disinformation”, and 67 received the “clickbait” rating. Out of 240 articles, only 67 were corrected after being rated by Raskrinkavanje.
Media in Serbia had the largest number of rated articles/publications, including Alo (8), the Serbian edition of Sputnik (6), and news websites Srbija danas, Srbin, Informer (five each), and Republika, Pink and Novosti with four articles each. Alternativna televizija and Montenegrin portal IN4S also had four rated articles each, and inaccurate claims related to this narrative were also published on various Twitter and Facebook profiles in the region.
A 2019 study by author Asja Metodijeva shows that the Western Balkans is fertile ground for pro-Russian propaganda. Among other things, Metodijeva concluded that there is a general disillusionment with the West in the region, which is crucial for the promotion of Russian narratives through social networks and the media. The effect of Russian narratives in the Balkans is, as stated, undermining the movement of the countries of the region towards joining the EU and NATO, encouraging nationalist movements, disrupting the local media system, increasing tensions between different communities and promoting Russia as an economic, political and military alternative to the West.
Anti-Western sentiment and moral condemnation
One of the main narratives which Russia uses to justify its invasion of Ukraine is the one strongly charged with anti-Western sentiment. In it, the West is presented as a threat to Russia both militarily and morally. Propagandists try to prove this narrative with a series of different claims about the alleged presence of Nazism in Western countries, relying on Putin’s premise about the “denazification” of Ukraine.
Anti-Western sentiment has existed in Russia for decades. As explained in an article by the author Maria Lipman published in 2015 on the website of the international think-tank European Council on Foreign Affairs, resentment towards the West has been “accumulating” for decades, and after the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, it reached new heights. The relationship between the West and Russia was full of ups and downs in the first ten years of Putin’s rule. However, as explained in the article, around 2012, the Russian regime’s approach to the West became significantly more negative than before due to a series of mainly economic factors. USAID was expelled from Russia, and a year later, along with an intensive propaganda campaign, laws were passed directed against non-governmental organizations that receive foreign donations, student exchange programs and foreign adoption agencies. Putin portrayed the West as an enemy whose goal is to harm Russia. During the crisis in Ukraine in 2014, as explained in the article, the West was presented in Russia as the real initiator of the conflict, which for many citizens confirmed Putin’s claims about how the West wants to harm Russia.
An interesting aspect of the Putin regime’s anti-Western propaganda is the narrative about the “decadent West”, which, according to Maria Lipman, was popularized around 2013. According to Kremlin propaganda, the West is a corrupt, rotten, immoral and perverse society that is on the verge of collapse and is trying to “poison” the Slavic nations with “corrupted individualism”. Russia, on the other hand, is a morally superior alternative and a society based on traditional values and spirituality.
Merging the anti-Western attitude with conservatism was, as Lipman stated, a clever propaganda trick to consolidate the image of the evil West that threatens Russia and its traditional values, together with all those who question the “impeccable history” of Russia in any way: artists, liberals, gay people and all those who do not treat the Russian Orthodox Church with due respect.
The narrative of the “decadent West”, which is based on a conservative critique of liberal ideology, is in direct contrast to the narrative of the “West supporting Nazism”, which, it is important to emphasize, is the most extreme right-wing ideology.
The contradiction of Russian anti-Western propaganda is also reflected in the fact that it has also found fertile ground in extreme right-wing circles in Western countries. At the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, extremist groups in France, Germany and Great Britain promoted Russian propaganda on social media to spread anti-Western narratives. A survey conducted in Canada showed that citizens on the right side of the political spectrum believe more in Russian disinformation about the war.
Thanks to claims about the “decadent West”, Putin’s regime has found “common ground” with radical right-wing and racist groups in the United States of America, which also base their ideology on the belief that Western countries are failing due to the rejection of “traditional values” which have shaped white and/or western culture. In the worldview of these groups, marked by anti-Semitism, racism, homophobia and misogyny, NATO and the European Union are often at the very top of the “enemy list”.
Despite all the disinformation and propaganda narratives coming from Russia, the fact is that Russia, not the West, is responsible for the invasion of Ukraine, an independent and sovereign state. Ukraine, like any other country, has every right to preserve its sovereignty and make decisions about its destiny, including the decision to join the NATO alliance, and no one, not even the Russian Federation, can dispute that right. A review of current events and historical facts makes it quite clear that propaganda excuses, such as the alleged need to “denazify” Ukraine and prevent the expansion of NATO alliance, are just excuses. These are attempts to present the invasion, the violation of international law, the deaths of thousands of civilians and the destruction of infrastructure as morally justified by shifting the blame to a third party, which is not even participating in the conflict.
Finally, it is important to remember – despite all Putin’s efforts to paint a picture of the “evil West” which is a real threat to Russia and its “correct” traditional values, on February 24, he did not send hundreds of thousands of soldiers to attack NATO member countries, instead, he sent them on the territory of Ukraine, the country where his “brotherly people” live.
(Nerma Šehović and Marija Ćosić, Raskrinkavanje.ba)
