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Russian Agents Cloaked in Mantles of the Macedonian Orthodox Church

Putin’s regime is using the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) for spreading influence in Orthodox countries. The ROC  is exerting enormous pressure on other churches and preventing the recognition of autocephaly status the Macedonian Orthodox Church (MOC). By means of intelligence actions, Russian priests are recruiting members of the clergy all over the local Balkan churches, writes Truthmeter.mk in the...

(INTERVIEW) Maliukevičius: The Russian influence is trying to weaken us and make us look away from Ukraine

Initially, I thought that the goal of the Russian influence operations was to create a kind of sympathy for the Russian regime and Russian ideology. But their main target now is simply to create more chaos inside the neighboring countries in order to kind of make us look the other way into our internal problems and stop supporting Ukraine...

Moscow doesn’t like the Prespa apples and it finds Ecuadorian bananas tastier than the Indian

If the pressure from Russia was not that obvious in the Macedonian case with the banned imports of apples from Prespa, the example of Ecuador was pretty straightforward. By skillfully manipulating the business sector, the pressure put on the Ecuadorian leadership hit success and it changed its mind on the US offer to exchange the old Soviet weaponry and...

Navalny’s death overshadowed Moscow’s disinformation on the military campaign in Ukraine

Despite this February marking the second anniversary since the start of Ukraine’s suffering at the hands of Russian aggression, which has resulted in thousands of casualties and never-ending destruction of everything significant for Ukraine and Ukrainians, Moscow’s disinformation campaign in regard to its military campaign continues to persistently spread throughout the world. Most recently, such disinformation was directly spread...

Emotional ties and propaganda: The Russian “Soft power” in the Balkans

Russian media Sputnik and RT (Russia Today) Balkans operating in Serbia, are used as propaganda tools by Putin’s Russia and represent Russian “soft power” in the region. This propaganda from Moscow, disseminated through the contents published by both Russian media outlets and republished by Serbian media, reaches, and is read everywhere in the Western Balkans, including in North Macedonia....

EU’s financial assistance for Ukraine does not mean that Europe is at war with Russia

The EU has never called for a war with Russia but has helped Ukraine to preserve its territorial integrity and democratic society. Europe condemns Russian aggression and appeals for it to stop. The claim that Macedonian citizens should prepare for mobilization is just arbitrary. So far, no one has announced any kind of mobilization. This speculation has been circulated...

From Alaska via Putin and Moscow to the Balkans and finally to North Macedonia

PHOTO: Collage: Vladimir Putin, screenshot/YoutTube; map of Alaska, public domain Facebook posts are spreading disinformation regarding Putin’s latest decree according to which Alaska, the Baltic countries, Tibet, and other territories that historically belonged to the USSR and Imperial Russia will be retrieved back. The fake news started from ESSA News (Poland), spread through the Balkans, and finally arrived in North...

The alleged Nazism in Kyiv still the subject of Russian disinformation

Several disinformation narratives have prevailed this year in the Macedonian-language online space and media – from Ukraine’s “statehood being at stake” should the war continue, to the claim that Zelenskyy has lost popularity. The most consistent disinformation narrative, however, concerns the connection between Kyiv elites and Nazism – a narrative directly promoted by Putin and Medvedev. What stands out...

Serbian tabloids “toppled” North Macedonia’s Kovachevski-led government

Photo: Government of North Macedonia Despite the inaccurate, inflammatory, and nationalistic articles online, North Macedonia’s government was not “toppled”, nor did “the Albanians, slowly but surely, seize the power”. The newly elected government is a so-called technical government, also known as a “Przhino government”, in accordance with the Przhino Agreement , signed in 2015. The technical government’s responsibility is to...

Unwanted imports: Anti-EU Kremlin disinformation rides high in N. Macedonia

Most of the anti-EU Kremlin disinformation in N. Macedonia originate abroad, both in Russia and in the West, and then arrive in the country through the social platforms and some through the internet media. Some of them are then adjusted to the local context, and the small number of disinformation pushing Kremlin narratives are native. Because of this, there...

A disinformation round “Sofia-Belgrade-Skopje” with a typical Russian flair

The flow of Russian disinformation has become familiar – it starts in Russia, travels to Serbia, and from there, it spreads throughout the entire Western Balkans. In the following case, however, disinformation’s source is in Bulgaria. The avalanche of disinformation started with an episode of the Bulgarian show “Don’t Be Afraid with Vasil Vasilev” and then spread to Serbian...

The video doesn’t show Chinese immigrants fleeing from Russia

Photo: A screenshot from the video The video shared in the post we are fact-checking does not show Chinese immigrants fleeing from Russia following Putin’s offer of citizenship to foreigners fighting for Russia. It shows people traveling from Russia for New Year’s holidays. The video appeared a few days before Putin’s Decree on 4 January, which puts on the fast...

Putin did not say that Bulgaria should be divided

A post on a Russian blog which is someone’s personal opinion first made rounds in Bulgarian media and then in Macedonian media and social networks, with a special addition – a statement allegedly made by Putin regarding dividing Bulgaria. However, Putin has never made such a statement, writes Truthmeter.mk. Under the content-sharing agreement between Truthmeter.mk and Meta.mk, we republish the...

German defence minister warns Ukraine war could expand

German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius warned that the war between Russia and Ukraine could expand beyond the neighbouring countries, publishes dpa news agency. "We hear threats from the Kremlin almost every day - most recently again against our friends in the Baltic states," Pistorius told the Tagesspiegel newspaper in an article published on Friday. With regard to the Bundeswehr, the minister...

Casino advertisement presented as Satanic ritual in Ukrainian church

Photo: A screenshot from the video A video featuring people donning Satanic costumes, masks, and makeup dancing and singing in Ukrainian is being used by the Russian propaganda apparatus to disinform the public. It is insinuated that it was recorded in Ukrainian church, thus making Ukraine out to be satanic and demonic. However, the video was not recorded in a...

There is no evidence that Ukraine is losing 30,000 troops per month in the war with Russia

Photo: ukrinform.net Ukraine’s former Public Prosecutor, Yuriy Lutsenko, is spreading unconfirmed data regarding the number of killed and wounded Ukrainian troops. In fact, in his own statement he calls upon authorities in Ukraine to publish the accurate data of wounded soldiers, thereby tacitly admitting that his statement was not based on official data. Ukraine has not been disclosing the numbers...

Ukraine does not send pregnant women to fight the Russians

Photo: Screenshot from the video in the FB post There is no relevant evidence in support of the video. According to the Centre for Strategic Communication established by the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture and Information Policy on countering disinformation, the video is fake and fabricated. The fact is that Ukraine is not sending pregnant women to fight the Russians in...

“Russian inclination” is constructed from a 15-year old photograph used in news reports on the Name Dispute

Photo: Screenshot of the FB post The photograph in the post we are fact-checking was used by Russian media in 2007 in the context of reporting on the name dispute between Macedonia and Greece at the time. Parts of the map posted belong to Greece and are marked as Western Macedonia, Eastern Macedonia, and Central Macedonia and they present, in...

Bulgaria did not allow the overflight of Lavrov’s plane due to the sanctions against Zakharova, not because of N. Macedonia

Sergey Lavrov at the press conference in Skopje, 01.12.2023 Photo: Bojan Blazhevski, meta.mk The spokeswoman of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, was part of the Russian delegation at the OSCE Ministerial Council in Skopje. Her presence on the Russian plane forced Bulgaria to revoke the permission to fly over its territory. The reason is not the bilateral dispute...

Levica snatched up Kremlin’s megaphone

Representatives of Levica on the celebration in Moscow on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Soviet Pioneers Photo: Official Levica's FB page A large part of the public in North Macedonia already perceives Levica (The Left) as a pro-Russian party, deeply embedded in the Kremlin propaganda machinery. The party uses the Moscow terminology, calling the...