DISINFO: NATO justifies its actions with alleged Russian meddling in Ukraine
SUMMARY
The new joint command for special operation forces of Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia comes at a time when NATO continues to increase military presence in Europe, especially the eastern countries. This has started after the coup in Ukraine in 2014, and NATO justifies it with the alleged Russian meddling in that conflict. Moscow has denied these accusation several times, asserting that NATO forces deployment near Russian borders is a provocation.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin narratives that NATO is provoking Russia at its borders. In this article this narrative is strengthened by the Euromaidan being a coup d’état narrative, and the returning storyline that the annexation of Crimea was an expression of Crimean citizens' desire to re-join Russia through a legal referendum. The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution stating that the referendum in Crimea was not valid and could not serve as a basis for any change in the status of the peninsula. In order to justify the illegal annexation of Crimea and the reunification with Russia, Moscow regularly claims that Euromaidan was a coup d’état. See comparable debunks of this sort of disinformation on Ukraine's "coup d'etat" here and on "NATO provocations" here.