Psychological warfare is one of the broadest offensives that Vladimir Putin's dictatorship is launching against Western countries.<\/p>\n
\u201cPoland has become the target of intense disinformation attacks\u201d<\/big><\/p>\n The Polish Embassy in Spain has denounced today that \"Poland has become the target of intense disinformation attacks\" <\/em> by Russia <\/strong>, in a message on Twitter<\/a> which links to a report published on 30 December by EUvsDisinfo<\/a>, a website of the European External Action Service (EEAS) of the European Union.<\/p>\n Putin whitewashes Hitler to demonize Poland<\/big><\/p>\n The final paragraph of the report states: \"EUvsDisinfo has already documented 1,443 cases of disinformation mentioning Poland.<\/strong>\"<\/em> The full list of such cases can be seen here.<\/a> The cases started being collected on 29 October 2015, and the latest reported one so far is from 12 December. The list contains false statements launched by Russia against Poland to demonize the Poles<\/strong> and justify Russia's actions against Ukraine and also the aggressions perpetrated by the Soviet Union against Poland. The report states the following:<\/p>\n \"Historical revisionism has also served a purpose in the Kremlin\u2019s attempts to vilify Poland. According to Putin himself, Poland actually forced Hitler to start World War II<\/strong> by refusing to give away the Danzig Corridor to Germany. In this way, the Kremlin has essentially tried to blame Poland for causing the war<\/strong>. The tactic is a convenient distraction from the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, to be sure. However, Polish authorities have debunked this heinous lie and many other attempts to re-write history.<\/strong>\"<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n I already referred to that Putin hoax here in February 2024<\/a>. The Russian dictator launched it in an interview with Tucker Carlson. Putin accused Poland of being \"intransigent\" to Hitler's demands to hand over the Danzig corridor<\/strong>, a blatant way of whitewashing that dictator in order to demonize a democratic country for refusing to give in to the blackmail of Nazi Germany. Let us also remember that Putin's regime has been justifying the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939 for years<\/a>, and that in July 2023, in a speech riddled with lies, the Russian dictator stated that Russia should thank Stalin<\/a>, who invaded Poland in 1939 in a coordinated aggression with Nazi Germany.<\/p>\n Anti-Polish hoaxes from Moscow and their use as a distraction tool<\/big><\/p>\n The EUvsDisinfo report also points out other aspects of Russia's disinformation campaign against Poland:<\/strong><\/p>\n \"Russian state and pro-Kremlin outlets have consistently presented Poland as a US-controlled \u2018puppet\u2019 with no sovereignty.<\/strong> Specifically, Washington and NATO have used Poland as an aggressive anti-Russian actor and a \u2018barking chain dog\u2019. Examples have included: Poland behaves like an obedient 51st state of the US<\/strong>, the CIA controls Polish elites with compromising materials from the Communist era, the West is turning Poland into another \u2018Reich\u2019<\/strong> for a new \u2018Drang nach Osten\u2019, the US wants to drag Warsaw into the Ukraine war by 2025, and the US may use Poland to start a nuclear war with Russia.<\/strong>\".<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The most absurd lies about Russia against Poland<\/big><\/p>\n The hoaxes spread by the Kremlin and its propaganda networks go much further and they do not hesitate to invent facts that are obviously false but that a large part of the Russian population is willing to believe<\/strong>, after years of being subjected to a constant barrage of lies from Putin's dictatorship:<\/p>\n \"If the Kremlin is to be believed, Poland is dreaming of its imperial past and wants to rebuild its old empire with American money and Ukrainian blood.<\/strong> Warsaw is moving towards a revival of Greater Poland and using the Russian military operation as an opportunity to secure the return of its Eastern Borderlands.<\/p>\n The Kremlin has also sought to create an impending sense of urgency, falsely claiming that Poland has already started the partition of Ukraine.<\/strong> Supposedly, its troops are moving to the east to annex Western Ukraine and parts of Belarus<\/strong>.\"<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The Kremlin's disinformation campaigns also use a phenomenon studied in psychology, projection, which consists of accusing others of one's own actions<\/strong>, a method that Moscow uses as a distraction. Here's what the report says about it:<\/p>\n \"As the Kremlin has ramped up its own nuclear sabre rattling, pro-Kremlin disinformation peddlers have also tried to deflect their own nuclear rhetoric onto Poland<\/strong>, falsely claiming that Warsaw wants to have American nuclear weapons in order to carry out its upcoming partition of Ukraine.\"<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n These hoaxes serve to generate an increasingly aggressive attitude on the part of Russia towards Poland.<\/strong> Let us recall, in fact, that in May 2022, when three months had not yet passed since the beginning of the large-scale Russian aggression against Ukraine, the Russian State Duma threatened Poland with being the next to be attacked after Ukraine<\/a>.<\/p>\n Poland's harsh experience with Russian imperialism<\/big><\/p>\n In the last century, Poland has already suffered the terrible effects of Russian imperialism <\/strong>. After regaining its independence on 11 November 1918 (Poland had been occupied by Prussia, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Russia for 123 years), Poland was invaded by Bolshevik Russia in the Polish-Soviet War of 1919\u20131921<\/strong>, which ended in Russian defeat thanks to the decisive and unexpected Polish victory at the Battle of Warsaw on 15 August 1920<\/a>, a victory that prevented a full-scale communist invasion of the rest of Europe <\/strong>.<\/p>\n Finally, in September 1939, Hitler's Germany and Stalin's USSR jointly invaded Poland<\/a>, dividing up the country and committing all kinds of atrocities against the Polish population in both occupation zones. The most famous Soviet crime against Poland was the Katyn massacre, in which the Soviets murdered 22,000 Polish prisoners of war<\/a> by shooting them in the back of the head.<\/p>\n Finally, the USSR retook Poland in 1945<\/strong>, an occupation that some call \"liberation\" for the expulsion of the nazi occupiers, when in fact the Soviets committed all kinds of crimes and looting against the Poles<\/a>, including the rape of over 100,000 Polish women and girls by soldiers Soviets<\/a>. This new Soviet occupation also meant that Poland was subjected to a communist dictatorship imposed and controlled from Moscow<\/strong> between 1945 and 1989.<\/p>\n
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