The article published by the Russian state media RT stating: “Ceuta and Melilla are not Spain”

The Kremlin's propaganda media have spent years doing everything possible to weaken and destabilize NATO countries.

Russia's support for separatism in Spain and the support of Spanish separatists for Russia
The PSOE's sewers and its role in the erasing of Russian interference in Catalonia

An article written by a former military officer very close to Podemos

As part of this strategy, in 2021 the Russian state media outlet Russia Today (RT) published an article about Ceuta and Melilla, titled: "The latest migration crisis in Ceuta: a portrait of Spain." The article was written by Luis Gonzalo Segura, a writer and former lieutenant in the Spanish Army, who was expelled for making public and insulting criticisms of his superiors, some of which he made while in uniform on a La Sexta program on October 14, 2014.

Former Lieutenant Segura was then collaborating with RT and was a person very close to the far-left party Podemos, which at that time was part of the governing coalition headed by Pedro Sánchez. RT published frequent articles by Segura from October 2, 2017, the day after the separatist coup in Catalonia (an attack on national unity that received support from Russia) until June 26, 2023, a month before the last general elections.

His first article was to criticize the Spanish government on the occasion of the 2017 separatist coup in Catalonia

Significantly, Segura's first article in RT was to criticize the Spanish government's response to the aforementioned separatist coup, sending security forces to confront a violent attempt to break the unity of Spain (let us recall that a Putin envoy offered the separatists economic aid and 10,000 Russian soldiers to support this seditious act). The article's title read: "Even I would leave if I could! How can the Catalans not run away in terror?" The article acknowledged that law enforcement officers were "thrown with stones" but criticized the "repression." How do they treat those who throw stones at the police in Russia?

Among other articles dedicated to attacking the King of Spain and Ukraine, on May 20, 2021, RT published an article by Segura about Ceuta and Melilla, in which he stated things like this: "Ceuta and Melilla are a burden for Spain. It is unjustifiable to maintain two colonies in the 21st century, but doing so at such an enormous cost is only understandable in a country afflicted by a morbid nostalgia." That article was published a few hours after Morocco launched a migration assault against Ceuta which forced the mobilization of the Spanish Army.

The article published by RT in 2021: “Ceuta and Melilla do not represent any military advantage”

The article went so far as to claim absurdities like this: "Ceuta and Melilla offer no military advantage, much less a geopolitical one. Not only do they poison our relationship with Morocco, but they contribute absolutely nothing, even though centuries ago they were strategic enclaves of enormous importance in the Mediterranean Sea." The reality is that both Spanish cities continue to have enormous strategic importance due to their location in the Mediterranean, and if Morocco were to gain control of them, it could also exert much greater control over maritime traffic through the Strait of Gibraltar.

In that piece published by RT, Segura went so far as to use purely childish arguments against the Spanishness of those two cities: "Ceuta is Spain for the vast majority of Spaniards, even if they couldn't quite explain why: because they've been told so, because they've heard it, just because, because it was on the map they drew in school, because we arrived first, or for legal reasons, of course." A string of nonsense that could be applied to any city in any country.

The article shared by RT with 12 tweets: “Ceuta and Melilla are not Spain”

Segura completed these absurdities in the same paragraph by writing an even bigger one: "Ceuta and Melilla are not Spain, even though, perhaps, they may or may not be Morocco, that would have to be discussed, but they are not Spain: they are Africa. This geographical evidence seems to be ignored in Spain." Let's remember that there are ten countries that are transcontinental (that is, that have territories on more than one continent) and one of them is Russia, the dictatorship whose propaganda outlet published that article denying that Ceuta and Melilla were Spanish because they are in Africa, a continent where Spain has had territories since long before the Kingdom of Morocco existed. Will Russia relinquish Vladivostok, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk, Omsk, Irkutsk, and other Asian cities?

The article published by RT went from denying the Spanish identity of Ceuta and Melilla to also denying the international importance of Spain, the second largest country in the European Union and the fourth most populous: "Morocco is more important in the international context than Spain," the author stated, before ending with typical assertions of pro-Russian propagandists in Spain: "Spain is a second- or third-tier American protectorate, like Morocco, far below France or Germany, which also depend on the United States."

The contemptuous remarks about Spain continued with statements like this: "It is an anachronistic entity, so much so that its resemblance to Morocco is alarming that it doesn't seem difficult to conclude that Spain is the Morocco of Europe." The article ended by longing for "a time when the military was confined to its barracks, a time when Europe was hope and dreams, a time when migrants were welcomed... but times change."

It's important to remember that this article wasn't published by a private outlet. This anti-Spanish propaganda was disseminated by a media outlet owned by the Russian Federation government and directly controlled by the Kremlin, which has used it for years as one of its main propaganda channels. RT dedicated 12 tweets to spreading this article, which indicates its enormous interest in propagating the author's views. Imagine the uproar some people would be making if something like this had appeared in a state-run media outlet in Israel or the United States. But it was published by a Russian state-run media outlet, and that's why they're maintaining absolute silence.