The five disinformation narratives about the war in Ukraine
Poland’s population is shrinking allegedly due to Poles immigrating to Western European countries and the UK. This is despite the fact that the volume of this outflow has decreased in recent years.
It is also claimed that people are even fleeing Germany in search of a better life. “According to official government statistics, up to 300.000 highly qualified professionals leave Germany each year. The main destinations are Australia, Japan and, again, the United States”, reported the Belarusian TV channel Belarus-1.
According to statistics, around 300.000 German citizens do leave Germany every year, a trend that began after 2016. However, many of them are also returning to Germany, which keeps the balance at 80.000. The most popular destinations are neighbouring countries such as Switzerland and Austria, as well as the United States.
Narratives in previous years
We have already carried out similar analyses based on the database of false news several times: once for the period from August 2022 to August 2023 and again for the period from August 2023 to August 2024. It allowed us to understand how the narratives are changing.
Two years ago, every third fake claim was devoted to European countries; now it’s 42%. The number of mentions of Poland has increased (from 38% to 50%), as has the mention of the standard of living in Europe — from 18% to 30%. Meanwhile, the topic of war and defence remains at 10%.
A year ago, the dominant narrative centred on the difficulties faced by Belarusians living in Poland. Belarus borders Poland, and despite the visa regime, many Belarusians choose to go there to shop, study or work. Of all the fabricated stories about Poland, eight related to this topic were added to the database of the Belarusian Investigative Centre at that time. Over the last 10 months, there have been five of them. In other words, although the narrative has faded into the background, it has been preserved.
There were 30% fewer fake news stories about the sanctions imposed by the European Union and the United States on Belarus and Russia over the past year. The main narrative on this topic remains unchanged: sanctions do not work or have any negative consequences. On the contrary, they stimulate the economic development of the two states. They caused harm to the countries that introduced them — namely, the European Union countries and the United States.
A year ago, one of the top three popular narratives was that Poland has always been an enemy of Belarus while Russia has been a friend. It is based on the shared history of the Polish and Belarusian peoples, when the western part of modern-day Belarus was part of the Polish Republic until 1939. A year ago, we identified seven instances of misinformation on this topic.
Currently, that narrative has lost its relevance. We have not recorded any historical fakes relating to Poland. There were only two items intended to stir up hatred between Poles and Belarusians based on nationality.
Two years ago, the top three narratives sounded as follows: “Europe is in crisis”, “Europe is morally degraded”, and “Europeans are against supporting Ukraine in the war”.
The first narrative has become even more prominent over the past two years. The Belarusian Investigative Centre’s database contained 21 fakes of a similar nature, but now, just under a year later, there are 24.
Fake reports related to the moral degradation and abandonment of traditional European values halved in two years.
Over the past year, there were no fake stories at all in the BIC database related to the narrative that Europeans are against supporting Ukraine in the war.
Picture Credits: Flickr/hugovk