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West actively supports any anti-Russian media projects, says Russian Defense Ministry

Ministry spokesman Konashenkov recalled the organization Bellingcat, "which, incidentally, had been created just two days before the MH-17 flight disaster"

KUBINKA /Moscow Region/, June 26. /TASS/. The Western countries furnish active support for any anti-Russian investigative journalism projects, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said at a round-table meeting devoted to crucial issues of information resistance at the Army-2019 forum on Wednesday.

"’Active support is provided for any projects of so-called investigative journalism with anti-Russian bias. As an example one may recall the organization Bellingcat, which, incidentally, had been created just two days before the MH-17 flight disaster," Konashenkov said. "Although that organization lacked experience and reputation, its unconfirmed and biased claims were widely publicized by the leading Western mass media and eventually used for charges against Russia."

Certain representatives of the Russian media community loyal to the West are invited to foreign seminars where the trainees are instructed in using instruments and methods of subversive information campaigns, including illegal ways of gathering compromising evidence while staying anonymous, and in triggering popular outcry without any substantial reason.

Konashenkov said Western media charges against the Syrian government over alleged use of chemical weapons were another example. The accusations were exposed as fakes by various sources, including some participants in the simulated attacks and even one OPCW staffer who participated in the investigation. "However, in contrast to the frequently repeated charges no denouncements or rebuttals followed in the mass media," Konashenkov said.

"It has to be admitted that the postulate about the democracy, independence and impartiality of Western mass media that had been imposed on us starting from the 1990s has now been completely shattered. Our ill-wishers realize this. This explains why for the purpose of causing destructive information effects they often use not foreign, but some Russian mass media, which in their coverage of the activity of Russia’s Armed Forces never take the trouble of probing into the real state of affairs," Konashenkov stated.

He said the results of analysis allowed for identifying a number of resources that more often than others replicated Western media fakes in the Russian media space while intentionally ignoring official statements and denials.

"Regrettably, publications expressing the Western stance in these media account for more than half of the content. For instance, in May there were repeated charges against Syria and Russia of using chemical weapons. We had warned of the forthcoming provocations by the militants several days before the accusations appeared in the Western mass media and we dismissed them after the publication. But these mass media ignored our statements as if on orders from on high," Konashenkov said.