The post shares a print screen from a X (ex-Twitter) exchange between Zelenskyy and Siljanovska Davkova on the latter’s victory in the Presidential Elections. The post in focus incorrectly claims that “Macedonian troops have been sent to die like cannon fodder for the ideals of Fascist NATO”. North Macedonia does not have troops in Ukraine which was also confirmed with the reply Truthmeter received from the Defense Ministry, precisely from the General Staff of the Army, writes Truthmeter.
Under the content-sharing agreement between Truthmeter.mk and Meta.mk, we republish the text in full below:
We are fact-checking a post on the social network Facebook claiming the following:
Mother of the nation! What kind of a mother sends her offspring to die like cannon fodder voluntarily for the “ideals” of Fascist NATO?!
A communication from the social network X is shared as part of the post between the newly elected President of the Republic of North Macedonia, Gordana Siljanovska Davkova, and the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, exchanging greetings and congratulations upon the occasion of Siljanovska Davkova’s victory of the Presidential Elections.
Congratulations to Gordana Siljanovska Davkova on her convincing victory of the elections. I wish her a successful and fruitful term. We appreciate our strong partnership and we appreciate Skopje’s support for Ukraine in relations to the Russian invasion, wrote, inter alia, Zelenskyy in his greeting on X regarding Siljanovska Davkova.
After that, as can be seen from the photograph (print-screen) of the post we are fact-checking, her response, inter alia, says that Macedonian citizens express their solidarity with Ukraine in the struggle for progress, peace, and sustainable security.
The statement published in the post we are fact-checking about ”Macedonian troops being sent to die like cannon fodder for the ideals of Fascist NATO” is not true. Due to the context of the post – the fact that a photograph is being shared of a communication between Siljanovska Davkova and Zelenskyy – shows clearly that the post intends to pinpoint that Macedonian troops, allegedly, are “getting killed in Ukraine”. That, however, is not true. Truthmeter turned to the Defense Ministry and the response was that the Republic of North Macedonia does not have troops in Ukraine.
Currently, the Army of the Republic of North Macedonia has a total of 185 representatives deployed in NATO, the EU and the UN missions, operations and activities. The largest number of soldiers and formations that have participated in NATO’s operation were KFOR in Kosovo, where apart from the two military groups as strong as an infantry platoon, we also have staff personnel, while, in NATO’s Enhanced Vigilance Alert (EVA) in Romania and Bulgaria, we have platoon formations, and in Latvia, we have a unit as part of the Enhanced Forward Presence (EFP). In addition, we participate with a platoon in EU’s mission ALTEA in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in the UN mission UNIFIL in Lebanon with Headquarter staff, responded from the Defense Ministry for Truthmeter.
The Ministry also added that the formation and size of the participation in the operations and missions depended on the joint activities and demands that stem from NATO, EU, and UN meetings on the highest state level, as well as the capacities and capabilities that the Army can accomplish resulting from the analyses performed by the General Staff.
NATO is not a Fascist organization, and at the time of cooperation with Russia in 2010, jointly Russia and NATO marked the victory over Fascism.
The narrative that “NATO is a Fascist organization” is one of the narratives favored by the Kremlin, to discredit NATO and their support provided to Ukraine. Such a trend started with disinformation that “NATO was financing the Neo-Nazis from Azov” in Ukraine to ascribe a more serious dimension to the statement that “NATO was a Fascist organization”. The Institute for Strategic Dialogue has an analysis of the pro-Kremlin narrative on “Fascist NATO”.
While the Kremlin has played a role in spreading the ‘Ukrainian fascism’ rhetoric online, non-state actors with high follower numbers on Twitter are promoting the spread of conspiratorial anti-NATO talking points. This way, the Kremlin benefits from narrative-building within a wider, fragmented online information environment that quickly de-contextualises and misconstrues information. Pro-Kremlin narratives over the last few months have specifically accused NATO of supporting white supremacy and neo-Nazi ideology as a means of deflecting attention and criticism from the invasion and reframing the war with the Kremlin’s preferred term, “special military operation”. In doing so, these narratives exploit language around fascism, neo-Nazis and white supremacy for the Kremlin’s own purposes, attempting to discredit the support Ukraine is receiving from NATO and undermining the legitimacy of both NATO and Ukraine, specifies the conclusion of the analysis.
Due to all of the above-noted facts, the post fact-checked is assessed as untrue. NATO is not a Fascist organization, while North Macedonia does not have troops in Ukraine, which was confirmed by the reply that Truthmeter received from the Ministry of Defense, precisely from the General Staff of the Army.
