Allegedly, Macron's quote is being distributed through pro-Russian resources. He seems to be claiming that “all of NATO has already come to the Russian borders,” but it is still not clear what Putin wants from NATO. This quote is fake.

Emmanuel Macron did not make such a statement. Fact-checkers of the VoxCheck project note that not a single French media wrote about this. On the contrary, in his speech at the Madrid NATO summit on June 30, 2022, Macron rejected all claims that the war and its consequences allegedly depend on the hypothetical desire of the West. “Only Russia is responsible for this war, as well as for the serious consequences that it brings to the whole world, in energy security and food security in particular,” Macron said.

Russian media report that the head of the NATO Military Committee, Rob Bauer, allegedly admitted that several years ago the Alliance was preparing for its expansion near the borders with Russia. Like, now NATO is implementing these plans. It is not true.

Admiral Rob Bauer did not mention plans for NATO expansion. According to StopFake, the meaning and even the translation of his words have been distorted by the Russian media. In fact, the Chairman of the NATO Military Committee spoke about the revision and overhaul of military structures, which was planned several years ago.

The NATO Military Committee met on 16-18 September 2022 in Tallinn, Estonia. At a joint press conference, Chief Rob Bauer said that NATO would be conducting "the largest overhaul of military structures since 1949", which they began planning several years ago but it is now under way. In the original speech, the verb overhaul was used, which means to carefully inspect or overhaul. However, Russian propagandists saw in these words direct confirmation that the Alliance was planning to expand to the East years before a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. Thus, allegedly Russian claims to NATO about the danger of expansion near the borders with Russia are allegedly quite justified. In addition, pro-Kremlin telegram channels also wrote that Rob Bauer's statement supposedly proves that Finland and Sweden planned to join NATO in advance, and the war in Ukraine became only a formal reason for this.

In pro-Russian public pages, messages are circulating with testimonies of alleged eyewitnesses who saw dark-skinned, heavily armed foreign mercenaries in Izium. And in Kozacha Lopan, they allegedly speak only English.

According to the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security, the propaganda narrative “Western weapons are only prolonging the conflict in Ukraine” gradually grew into “NATO has come, otherwise we would have piled on the Ukrainians.” There is no evidence that NATO troops are in Ukraine. In Ukrainian public and social networks, videos are being distributed from cities and villages liberated from Russian infidels, where it is clear that it is the Ukrainian army that is repelling Russian invaders.

Previously, propaganda attributed the dismissal of Vovchansk to NATO troops. By spreading fakes about NATO or US troops in Ukraine, the Russians are trying to justify their defeat and hide their shame, because at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the propagandists devalued and ridiculed the Ukrainian military and planned to “take Kyiv in three days.”

Russian media write that a military ship from Romania, which is a member of the North Atlantic Alliance, exploded in the Black Sea on a “Ukrainian” mine. Like, this is the first case after the start of the so-called special operation. Allegedly, the Ukrainians randomly installed mines in the Black Sea “in panic and fear”. This is not true.

In fact, according to StopFake, the Romanian minesweeper Locotenent Dimitrie Nicolescu exploded on a drifting mine which was being tried to neutralize in the Black Sea. The crew, consisting of 75 people, was not injured by the explosion and safely arrived at the military port of Konstantsa. The ship needs to be repaired at the shipyard.

There is no evidence that the mine on which the Romanian minesweeper blew up was left by the Ukrainian military. On the contrary, Ukraine, together with other countries, is engaged in clearing mines in the western part of the Black Sea. After the Russian invasion on February 24, Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria and Ukraine destroyed 28 such mines in the Black Sea.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine reported that these are sea mines, which at the beginning of 2022 were not registered with the Ukrainian Naval Forces. These mines were captured by the Russian armed forces in 2014 during the invasion and temporary occupation of Sevastopol.

Thus, Russia resorts to provocations and discrediting Ukraine in front of international partners. Previously, propagandists accused Ukraine of blocking foreign ships in ports.

The Russian media once again distorted in their own way the content of an article in the American edition of The American Conservative. They write that, according to an article titled “Winners and Losers in the Ukraine War” by founding editor Patrick J. Buchanan, America is responsible for the escalation in Eastern Europe when a number of countries were accepted into NATO, as well as for the confrontation in Ukraine. StopFake writes about this manipulation.

In the original article, there is not a word about the recognition of the fallacy of American assistance to Ukraine. In his material, Buchanan reflects on who can be considered the winner and who will be the loser in the war in Ukraine. He further writes that a new Cold War has been established between the US and Russia and raises the question of whether it is in the interests of the US and how successful foreign policy was then if the Cold War began again.

The Russian media once again used quotes from the text of a foreign publication in order to fit them to their key messages. The text does not say that the United States regrets the support provided to Ukraine, and the only quote given by the propagandists is inaccurate.

This is not the first time that the Russian media have distorted the content of what was written in order to demonstrate the decline in support for Ukraine by Western partners and the United States in particular. Thus, they personify the propaganda cliché about the lack of unity of the Western countries in relation to Ukraine and the war that Russia unleashed.

This thesis appeared on propaganda channels in Telegram. Blogger and officer of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Anatolii Shtefan (“Shtirlits”) drew attention to the same type of fakes.

Russian “military correspondents”, who write daily about the war in Ukraine, actively disseminate information that “NATO troops” entered not only Vovchansk, but also Kozacha Lopan. There are practically no Ukrainian military in these cities, “many blacks and English speakers”.

Anatolii Shtefan recalled who exactly fired Vovchansk, adding a photo of Ukrainian soldiers against the backdrop of the Ukrainian flag over the administrative building of the city.

In the south and in the Kharkiv region, the counteroffensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, announced at the end of August, continues. According to President Volodymyr Zelenskyi, since the beginning of September, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have liberated about 2,000 square kilometers. As of September 11, Ukrainian units have de-occupied more than 40 settlements in the Kharkiv region.

Russian propagandists regularly throw messages about discrediting the Ukrainian military, and if they can no longer keep silent about the successes of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, then they attribute them to foreign mercenaries and that the counteroffensive is carried out to the order of the United States or the West.

Such a statement is spread by pro-Kremlin channels against the backdrop of ongoing events on the territory of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant seized by the Russian military. Propagandists claim that NATO intends to use the tense situation at the nuclear power plant in order to fully enter the war with Russia. They draw such conclusions on the basis of a statement by British MP Tobias Ellwood. However, this is manipulation.

According to EU vs Disinfo analysts, in August Tobias Ellwood, a member of the UK Parliament, did speak out about the situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. He stated that due to radiation leakage there is a real threat to life, therefore Article 5 of the Atlantic Treaty, which provides for joint defense in the event of a military threat, will automatically come into force. Russian propaganda uses this very warning as confirmation of the war with NATO.

However, in the context of the politician’s statement, it is clear that any deliberate actions by Russia that will lead to the spread of radiation in NATO countries should be considered an attack on them and encouraged to common defense, as, in fact, this is provided for in Article 5 of the Atlantic Treaty. That is why NATO is not going to enter the war, but will defend itself in case of a possible threat. That is, the words of the British official concerned the defense of NATO member countries.

Russian media write about this regarding the report of the NATO Defense College. They said that NATO analysts "confirmed" that Russia "uses only a small part of its resources and does not use its main trump cards" in the war against Ukraine. This is manipulation.

On July 27, the NATO Defense College published an analytical report on Russian tactics of waging war against Ukraine. However, there is not a single mention in the report that Russia is not fighting at full strength in Ukraine. Instead, it says that Russia has limited use of certain military tactics against Ukraine, but this is explained by the intention to preserve part of the forces for attacking NATO countries. The main point is that Russia did not properly prepare for the invasion of Ukraine and made a significant miscalculation regarding Ukraine and its Armed Forces. Experts write that during the invasion of Ukraine, the Russian army showed a strong material weakening of the troops and significant discipline violations. Now, Russia is deploying older weapons more often to strike the territory of Ukraine, which may indicate both the gradual depletion of the stock of high-precision weapons and the planning of a future war against NATO. The report also states that as of July-August 2022, Russia has probably reached the limit of conducting major offensive operations.

Analysts conclude that despite Russia's current apparent inability to defeat Ukrainian forces, the Kremlin still has an opportunity to correct its mistakes, strengthen its army and attack NATO countries in the future. Therefore, the Alliance needs to actively strengthen its defense, because "Russian strategic ambitions are not limited only to Ukraine."

According to the Center for Combating Disinformation, Russian propaganda systematically uses the materials of the world media for disinformation about the future defeat of Ukraine and its partners. The department cites several new examples of the use of this tactic. Propagandists are spreading quotes from pro-Russian US military analyst Scott Ritter, who said in an interview with the Kremlin media that Ukraine and NATO have no chance of preventing a complete military victory for Russia. Regarding Daily Shincho, Russian media spread information that the US is losing to Russia in the new "Cold War". In fact, the article compares the political regimes of Russia and the United States and the reaction of society to the actions of the authorities. And through theses taken out of context from the interview of historian Neil Ferguson, Russia is trying to create the false impression that he believes in Russia's victory. In fact, Neil Ferguson opposes prolonging the war in Ukraine.