Vaidere: Disinformation is a Russian military tactic and a threat to our security

"Disinformation is an integral part of Russia's military strategy - a dangerous weapon against which we must fight, " says MEP Inese Vaidere, one of theauthors of the just adopted European Parliament resolution "on Russia's disinformation and falsification of history to justify its war of aggression against Ukraine".

"Russia's war against Western civilisation is not only taking place in Ukraine, but also off the battlefield. When Russia illegally annexed the Crimea, it launched a disinformation campaign based on distorted history. This is a coordinated and state-funded campaign of information manipulation on all possible fronts, from spreading disinformation on social media platforms to creating propaganda films and even injecting propaganda content into computer games. Disinformation is a threat to our security, which is why we have drafted this resolution to remind Europeans that we cannot accept Russia's attempts to rewrite history and manipulate the facts, and that we are united against it," said MEP Vaidere.

"We have seen all this - the manipulation of history, the distortion of its facts - in the Soviet Union, but in the West these lies are not always recognised. Today's Russia uses history as a tool not only against Ukraine, but also against us, against the whole democratic world, to create the impression that Ukraine belongs to Russia. We in the EPP group and EP are therefore opposed to such attempts, which undermine the sovereignty and borders of independent states and contravene international law. Ukraine has the right to choose its membership in international organisations, including the EU and NATO," said the MEP, whose pilot project contributed to the creation of the East StratCom Task Force to counter Russian disinformation campaigns.

MEP Inese Vaidere, who has worked actively in the EP for twenty years to explain Latvian history, recalls: "Until Russia takes responsibility for the crimes committed by the Soviet Union, as Germany did for the crimes of the Nazis, friendly relations between the EU and Russia will not be possible. We in Europe also have a job to do to deepen our understanding of the crimes of communism, to create awareness and resilience among our citizens against the manipulation of historical facts".