The propagandists devalued and manipulated news stories to increase Ukraine's mistrust of its partners.

On July 12, a two-day NATO summit ended in Vilnius. The summit adopted a package of decisions of three elements on Ukraine. In particular, the allies confirmed that Ukraine will become a member of the Alliance and agreed to remove the requirement to fulfill the Membership Action Plan (MAP) from the entry procedure. According to them, this will change Ukraine's path from a two-step process to a one-step process. Propagandists could not get around such a large information drive. Detector Media prepared a selection of their messages.

1 The summit was a failure for Ukraine

Russian propagandists reacted to statements by Western leaders at the summit with cries of “Failure!” and blamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi for this. Propagandists promoted the view that the NATO summit brought nothing to Ukraine. Like, they didn’t let them into NATO, didn’t give them new weapons, and Zelenskyi, with his harsh statements, alienated everyone so much that they didn’t even want to be photographed with him. Propagandists snatched from the stream of news only those pieces of news that were convenient for them.

Let us remind that although at the summit there were no specifics regarding when and according to what clear plan Ukraine can join NATO, however, our state was allowed to bypass the procedure of the Membership Action Plan. That is, theoretically speed up the flow. In addition, the summit adopted the Declaration of the G7 countries, which deals with security guarantees for Ukraine, to which the propagandists reacted with cries of “external control” and “surrender” of Ukraine to the West. We also received new types of weapons from a number of countries participating in the event.

2. Foreign press ignored the summit

The propagandists tried to show that the foreign press allegedly ignored the summit, which means they were tired of the topic of Ukraine as a whole.

They regularly use collections of fake and genuine covers from foreign media or distort materials from foreign publications. The main purpose of such collections is to confirm by allegedly independent sources that the picture of the world that the propagandists paint is true. On the eve of the NATO summit, for example, they quoted an article by the Finnish public broadcaster Yle about Ukrainian refugees who are being denied social assistance. At the same time, propagandists did not give links to the source. And the latest publications on the Yle website, in fact, were supportive of Ukrainians who received asylum in Finland.

In general, the topic of the NATO summit in foreign media has become a noticeable news drive. And they would write about it even if they did not talk about Ukraine there, since this is an international meeting of the highest level. In particular, the media actively wrote about him both in the United States and in European countries.

3. At the summit, Zelenskyi lobbied for the introduction of Polish and Lithuanian troops into Ukraine, but NATO did not agree to this

During the NATO summit, the traditional message of propagandists about Poland, which supposedly wants to take over Ukraine, took on a new shade. In particular, they frightened their audiences with the likely introduction of Polish and Lithuanian troops into Ukraine. Like, Zelenskyi demanded this from NATO, but he was refused.

This is another invention of propagandists. First, they are trying to convince Russia's supporters that Russia is not the only aggressor. Secondly, to emphasize that the Ukrainian Defense Forces no longer have the ability to confront Russia, which means that Russian victory is close. Thirdly, to play on the Ukrainians' fears of losing independence. Fourth, to devalue the help of Poland and Lithuania, which are one of the main partners of Ukraine in countering Russian aggression. Detector Media has written about this before.

4. NATO reduces funding for Ukraine as a result of the “failed counteroffensive”

Propagandists claimed that Western leaders, whose names they did not name, allegedly announced at the NATO summit that they planned to cut the amount of aid to Ukraine. Like, this is the result of a “failed counteroffensive” that began in February.

It's fake. Neither Ukrainian nor foreign media have any information about such statements. The topic of the counteroffensive was rarely heard in official speeches and publications of the NATO summit participants.

By spreading such fakes, their authors tried to undermine the confidence of Ukrainians in NATO.

5. Citizens of NATO countries do not want to see Ukraine in the Alliance

Propagandists spread the assertion that Ukraine did not receive guarantees of joining the Alliance, because the citizens of the countries-members of the Alliance do not want to see it there.

In such publications propagandists refer to the results of opinion polls. In this case, in particular, they manipulated a survey commissioned by the Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita. In the original article, 47% of respondents did not agree with the results of the survey that Ukraine should be immediately accepted into NATO. However, the infographic from the article in Rzeczpospolita is only an illustration of one question on a sociological survey. And the original article goes on to say that the Poles recognize the importance of Ukraine as part of the NATO security architecture and are not against Ukraine joining the Alliance later. This is quite in tune with the positions of the top officials of the NATO member states. At the summit in Vilnius, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that all NATO members and their allies are unanimous that Ukraine will sooner or later become a member of NATO.