Member-only story
Why People Hate Ukraine, Ukrainians, & NATO — Disinformation Narratives You Should Know About
It’s hard to say why someone believes disinformation or misinformation in the first place.
It might be because of poor education, a poor economy even, or just malicious intent. I don’t know if we’re that simple as human beings to attribute beliefs with attitudes more generally. I think it’s more complicated than that.
Nonetheless, there are some things we can point to that could explain how disinformation works and why it — unfortunately — often sticks.
Since the beginning of Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, much of the anti-NATO, anti-Ukraine, and anti-Ukrainian refugee speech has continued and even grown in East Central Europe.
Some of this includes rhetoric like “Yankee trainers trained the Ukrainians,” “Ukraine is just a US/NATO colony,” or “Russia had no choice but to defend itself.”
We are all familiar with such slogans since we meet people with these views on a near-daily basis.
There are at least two reasons why these views are popular in the region.
