The global information war has recently worked in increasingly surprising, though not effective ways, by hands of those who consider it advantageous to attack Russia by fake news, hoping for any negative effect.
A typical example was the publication of the article "Russia's arms supply to Azerbaijan causes discontent in Baku and indignation in Armenia" by the Polish edition of 'Belarusian Truth', which positions itself as the Belarusian opposition but, of course, has nothing to do with Belarus. The article, without citing any sources, presents claims for Russia's arms supply, allegedly expressed by Azerbaijan. The author of the fake, identifying himself as Yuri Baranevich, focuses on writing the shortcomings found by the Azerbaijani military in Russia's weapons: the rockets do not explode, the machine guns do not fire, the helicopters do not start, the automation does not work.
The fake is trying to convince the readers: all models of "defective" Russian weapons are listed, each problem is described, even an explanation was given why Moscow sells garbage to Baku instead of normal weapon - in order to maintain balance in the zone of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, also explaining the unsettledness of which by the Kremlin's hand. In the end, the article unexpectedly pushes out an attempt to advertise Belarusian weapons for Azerbaijan. The goal is obvious - to create discord between Russia, Azerbaijan and Belarus.
The 'Belarusian Truth' fake was quickly exposed by Azerbaijan, which stressed that these claims do not reflect reality and are of provocative nature. The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry noted that Azerbaijan pays particular attention to the purchase and acquisition of different types of weaponry from certain manufacturing countries. "We carefully choose the best, most qualitative and effective military products necessary to increase our combat potential in order to liberate the occupied territories. The new Russian weaponry the Azerbaijani Army now has at its disposal meets the increased requirements for modern weapon systems. These weapons significantly increase the maneuvering and firing capabilities of the military units, particularly of those that perform combat missions at the forefront defense line of our troops,” the ministry stressed.
Head of the expert council of Baku Network, Elkhan Alasgarov, speaking with Vestnik Kavkaza, noted that the destruction of Russian-Azerbaijani relations is one of the points of the anti-Russian information campaign. "Some forces want to spoil Russian-Azerbaijani relations against the backdrop of the processes taking place in the world. Azerbaijan-Russia relations are at a higher level than ever, we have a lot of economic and political interests. Russia is the co-chairman of the Minsk Group, and we expect that Russia will play a decisive role in the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. In addition, information aboput problems with arms supplies comes from foreign sources, hence the sources of fakes are outside Azerbaijan," he noted.
Elkhan Alasgarov also suggested that the primary goal is discrediting Russian arms in the world arms market. "The big arms firms are interested in eliminating the competition of Russian military equipment and taking away their markets. Hence the focus on the nonconformity of specific models of weapons supplied to Azerbaijan, although each party is tested. The struggle for markets is more evident in the claim about sale of obsolete weapons to Baku - no buyer will buy obsolete weapons, and the seller will not put it on sale being in a competitive market," he pointed out.
The director of the Institute of Political Studies Sergei Markov agreed with the expert. "This fake was directed against Russia, the Russian military-industrial complex, Russia's strategic military-technical agreements with other countries, and, in general, against Russia's good relations with its neighbors. Ultimately, this is a manifestation of the malicious Russophobia which is very common in Polish media," he said.
Among other things, Western forces do not like Russia's positive role in the lives of its neighbors. "Their political elites are actively participating in the global political hybrid war against Russia in order to break it as the country that most fully realizes the right to sovereignty together with China and as a country that is to some extent the exporter of sovereignty in the world as a whole. While selling weapons to Azerbaijan, Russia contributes to the strengthening of Azerbaijan's sovereignty. Certain global elites, with which the Polish media and politicians are partly connected, do not like this Russia's role very much," Sergey Markov concluded.
