DISINFO: NATO instructors prepare Ukraine's military to become war criminals
SUMMARY
NATO instructors prepare Ukraine’s military to become war criminals. Training events for the Ukrainian Armed Forces by instructors from Norway and Sweden contribute to the spread of lawlessness, violence and the continuation of hostilities in Donbas. As a result of war crimes, prepared by NATO instructors while training Ukrainian security officials, 119 children died and 310 were injured in Donbas. News Front publishes “a list” with personal data of individual military instructors from Sweden and Norway, who were directly involved in the training of war criminals in Ukraine.
RESPONSE
A recurring pro-Kremlin narrative about foreign military instructors in Ukraine. The claims of war crimes are false and not confirmed by OSCE SMM reports or any other reputable source. The "list" of Swedish and Norwegian instructors comes from a Telegram channel in the Russian language, that has about 9,000 followers. Even before the outbreak of hostilities with Russia in 2014, Ukraine had looked to strengthen its ties with the NATO military alliance. While the alliance’s response to the conflict has been understandably cautious, there has also been significant progress in the relationship with Kyiv. Institutional cooperation has intensified, and a number of individual NATO member states have sent military missions to Ukraine to provide training and support for the country’s transition towards NATO standards. Consultations and cooperation between NATO and Ukraine cover a wide range of areas including peace-support operations, defence and security sector reform, military-to-military cooperation, defence technology, interoperability and industry, civil preparedness, science and environment, and public diplomacy. Read similar cases: "US and British instructors teach Ukrainians how to carry out acts of terror", "Canadian military trains Ukrainian snipers and miners to kill Donbas residents", "Foreign military instructors are preparing five battalions of Ukrainians who are almost nationalists, the aim is to attack Donbas."