Kaja Kallas: ‘Putin’s justification for his war on Ukraine is steeped in lies’

The European Union must strengthen its support to EU candidate, neighbouring and third countries in tackling Russian disinformation, EU High Representative Kaja Kallas told an European Parliament plenary session on Russia’s disinformation and historical falsification to justify its war of aggression against Ukraine. 

“There is no rewriting of history that can ever explain away the invasion of another country today. But some people just don’t care. Putin’s justification for his war on Ukraine is steeped in lies. Ukrainians are fighting back every second of every day, and we will continue to support them until they win this war,” Kaja Kallas said. “But there is also a war taking place off the battlefield. It is Russia’s war of disinformation. Disinformation is a fundamental part of Russian military activities /../ Disinformation is a Russian military tactic and a threat to our security.” 

“As we recently saw in Romania, Moldova and Georgia, Russia does not stop its attempts to undermine and destabilise our Union and our partners,” Kaja Kallas. “We know we must work especially with candidate countries, building their resilience to withstand Russia’s attempts to keep them away from their European path.”

She also told MEPs the EU would cooperate better to make sure that it could better prevent, detect and address domestic threats to democracy, and improve situational awareness of disinformation and crisis response mechanisms. 

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