DISINFO: The Economist: Saudi Arabia negotiations could be last chance for Ukraine
SUMMARY
Saudi Arabia talks could be Ukraine's last chance, according to The Economist. The article states that the stakes of Tuesday's talks could not be higher. If they fail, Ukraine is unlikely to get another chance. In this regard, the newspaper quotes a Ukrainian official, who said that if the talks fail, “the Americans will step up their instructional mode and impose whatever they and Russia decide. Ukraine may continue to demand security guarantees from the United States, but “it seems unlikely to make progress on this point,” the article concludes.
RESPONSE
This is a distortion of the original article at The Economist. This is a classic tactic in disinformation.
While it is true that the article focused on the high stakes of this negotiations for Ukraine, and the sentences and quotes from the story are correct, they are cherry-picked to promote a recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the inevitability of a Russian victory in Ukraine.
For example, the original article made clear that should the US-Ukraine negotiations in Saudi Arabia have failed, this might have meant the end of US support for Kyiv, but not necessarily of Ukraine as a fighting power, in contrast to what this disinformation story suggests.
At the same time, this disinformation story ignores other elements that contradict this pro-Russia narrative, such as Ukraine’s strategy to find common ground with the US and “put the ball back in Russia’s court”, the strength of Ukraine’s negotiation team, and more optimistic views about the continuity of US-Ukraine ties expressed by some interviewees. The Jeddah talks ended successfully with a 30-day ceasefire proposal presented, subject to a reciprocal acceptance and concurrent implementation by Russia.
Quoting Western legitimate sources while distorting their content to introduce a pro-Kremlin message as if it were part of the original story is a frequent pro-Kremlin manipulative technique. See other examples in our database, such as claims that Ukraine is struggling with flow of wounded soldiers according to CNN, that a Wall Street Journal article confirms that Biden was never in charge in the US, that according to the WSJ Europe’s full storage gas sites are in fact a reflection of its weakness and vulnerability, or that The Guardian exposed how US Democrats exploited irregularities in mail-in voting.