Russian info war preceded Ukrainian ship seizures

BRUSSELS: Russia launched a year-long fake news campaign about Kiev’s and Nato’s plans for the Azov Sea before seizing three Ukrainian ships there, EU security commissioner Julian King alleged Monday.

King said Russian media spread false claims that Ukraine had infected the Azov Sea with cholera and that British and Ukrainian secret services had tried to ship a nuclear bomb to Crimea.

Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, and last month its forces opened fire on three Ukrainian navy vessels and seized them as they tried to pass through the Kerch Strait from the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov.

“If any of you thought that incident, as it were, came out of the blue, you would be wrong,” King told a conference in Brussels organised by the German Marshall Fund think tank.

“The disinformation campaign began much earlier, more than a year ago, when Russian media started pushing claims that the authorities in Kiev were dredging the seabed in the Sea of Azov in preparation for a Nato fleet to take up residence,” the British commissioner said.

“Then in the summer, there were claims that Ukraine had infected the sea with cholera,” King said.

“This was followed up in September with dark utterings in some Russian media forecasting west-inspired provocations on the Azov seashore.”

King said Russian media was also reporting that the United States “has been planning for clashes between the Ukrainians and the Russian forces in the Black Sea since the 1990s.” — AFP