Pro-Kremlin telegram channels disseminate information that NATO member countries, including the United States, are not against the Armed Forces of Ukraine “hitting”  Russia with all available weapons, that is, foreign ones, and not just Ukrainian ones. Based on the results of an emergency telephone conversation between representatives of the United States, NATO, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, which followed another massive Russian shelling of Ukrainian cities on January 2, 2024, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin allegedly promised to satisfactorily respond to Ukraine’s requests regarding medium- and long-range missiles. In arguing this, propagandists cite an article by The New York Times. However, this is a fake.

The truth is that The New York Times never published such a story, and their reporter at the Paris bureau of Constant Méheut, the supposed author of the fictitious article, did not actually write the story. This was reported by the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security. The Western countries arming Kyiv demanded that Ukraine use only its own weapons to attack Russian territory. In addition, neither on the NATO website nor on the official Pentagon channels there is any mention of the supply of missiles to Ukraine without range restrictions. This information is also not available on the website and communication channels of the US Embassy in Ukraine.

By spreading this disinformation, Russian propaganda seeks to demonize NATO, including the United States, saying that they are starting to openly fight against Russia and are even ready to destroy the civilian population of Russia. Thus, the propagandists also want to justify the bloody war unleashed by Russia against Ukraine and, according to them, against the entire West and NATO, which allegedly want to destroy Russia. Previously, Detector Media analyzed the Russian manipulation that NATO would allegedly invade Russia “after the war in Ukraine”.