DISINFO: Calls for Russia to withdraw from Ukraine are an attempt to distract from EU corruption
SUMMARY
NATO and the EU prepare another charade for domestic consumption with Russia as its main character. In face of the generalised corruption of the European Commission and the European Parliament, they urgently need a smoke screen to distract the attention of their citizens, and this is a call for Russia to withdraw from Ukraine.
RESPONSE
The claim is false. This disinformation story refers to an upcoming joint EU-NATO statement pledging support for Ukraine and calling for Russia to stop the invasion and withdraw from Ukraine, which is totally unrelated to a corruption scandal that exploded in December 2022, after several European Parliament members were accused of receiving bribes from at least one foreign country.
The allegation that corruption in the European Commission and the European Parliament is “generalised”, kind of the norm, is baseless. The EU reacted strongly to the scandal. Suspects in this case were immediately suspended from both their functions in the EU and their party memberships.
EU lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to press for MEPs to be obliged to declare assets and for external financing of MEPs or staff to be prohibited, including a ban on donations from non-EU countries. They also urged the European Commission to put forward a proposal for an independent ethics body as soon as possible. The EU also suspended work with Qatar on legislative files relating to the country, notably on visa liberalisation, as well as on an EU-Qatar aviation agreement and planned visits until the allegations about bribing practices by this nation had been confirmed or dismissed.
By framing the upcoming EU-NATO joint statement as “an attempt to distract” from the corruption scandal, this disinformation story tries both to stir up anti-EU feelings and to divert attention away from the unprovoked Russian aggression against its peaceful neighbour, which is indeed the real reason for this Western support for Ukraine.
It is a well-known Kremlin tactic to launch smear campaigns with mudslinging against others - see our article here.
See also other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that Russia jails people for high-level corruption whereas the US, UK and Europe don’t, that European aid to Ukraine is a corrupt scheme for Zelenskyy, or that the West is decadent, corrupt, rotten and has reached its final phase.
This disinformation narrative appeared in the same article as the claim that “Russian troops are not in Ukraine, as four regions decided to become Russian territory”.