DISINFO: “Opposition” in Russia are actually NATO influence agents aiming to destabilise the situation
SUMMARY
The meeting that NATO representatives had with Russian opposition members aimed to destabilise the situation in a sovereign Russia. Calling them “opposition” must cease, because opposition means something different. They are influence agents instructed by NATO representatives to continue destabilising the situation.
RESPONSE
Recurrent pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative aiming to discredit Russian opposition, in this case by framing it as foreign and NATO puppets working to destabilise Russia. No evidence is provided to support the claim.
This disinformation message was released after EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs criticised during a visit to Moscow the way the Russian authorities treated opposition leader Alexei Navalny and the crackdown on his supporters, and after Navalny’s aide Leonid Volkov announced a pause in the protests until the spring to prevent further arrests and violence against demonstrators and to focus on upcoming parliamentary elections. Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova accused Volkov of having received instructions during an online meeting with “NATO countries” on “how to continue to conduct subversive work ‘more cunningly’.”
Contrary to Zakharova’s affirmation, the online meeting that Volkov held was with Poland’s and EU diplomatic representatives, as the Polish Permanent Representative to the EU’s office itself tweeted. The tweet made a reference to ongoing debates among the EU’s 27 permanent representatives plus the ambassadors of the UK, the US, Canada and Ukraine about further steps to adopt, which was deliberately distorted by Zakharova to portray it as a “NATO meeting”. See Polygraph for further debunking on the false claim that NATO is instructing the Russian opposition.
See other examples in our database, such as claims that Lithuania and the CIA support Russian opposition’s battle against their own country and people; that the West is pouring money into Russian opposition to destroy the country; that the West is afraid to start a war with Russia, so it uses a nosy “fifth column” for its destabilisation; that Navalny is a Western project to influence Russia; or that the real aim of the Russian opposition is a plan of feminists and perverts to stop children from being born.