23 August is a special day for historic events in Europe. The European Day of Remembrance, also known as Black Ribbon Day, honours the victims of all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes.

On 23 August 1939, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany concluded the so-called Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with its Secret Supplementary Protocol that carved up Central and Eastern Europe into spheres of control between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. Days later, on 1 September 1939, the Second World War began in Europe.

Persistent attempts, both in the USSR and in present-day Russia, have tried to deny the Pact’s Protocol. When forced to recognise its existence, the Kremlin diminishes or relativises its importance by saying that almost everybody had a pact of non-aggression. Well, not everybody sliced up Europe into ‘spheres of influence’, disregarding other national sovereign governments.

Putin and the Pact

In recent years, Putin has prominently resurrected the Pact and praised its geopolitical value. In fact, it allowed the USSR and Nazi Germany to help each other. Putin omits saying that as pact-partners, the two countries exchanged vital material support, fuelling the destruction of Europe for 22 of the 64 months of war (almost two years or one-third of the time). The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact included a credit agreement between Germany and Soviet Russia, cooperation on trade, military technology and cultural exchange. It even provided for USSR sending Jews to Nazi Germany.

Outrageous claims of historical revisionism have surfaced in Russian state and other pro-Kremlin disinformation outlets. We have examined in detail the many attempts to play ping-pong with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact or manipulate it so nobody remembers what is up and down.

Currently, our EUvsDisinfo Database has 265 cases with examples of pro-Kremlin disinformation where the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact plays a key role or is a reference. Some of the outrageous claims are: ‘The Secret protocol never existed’, ‘The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact is not an “unusual” document’, ‘Poland and the West forced the USSR to sign a Pact with Nazi Germany’, and ‘In 1940, the Baltic States asked to be incorporated into the USSR’. Putin even claims that ‘Hitler offered Poland peace and a treaty of friendship and alliance’ but ‘Poland pushed Hitler too far by attacking’ or ‘Poland started World War II’.

23 August has gained a new dark relevance with Russia attempting the annihilation of independent Ukraine and developing authoritarian rule at home.

Freedom from totalitarianism and authoritarianism is not a given. Don’t be deceived.

Edit: Fixed missing link

Lauren Weber has been covering health policy for a long time. At The Washington Post, she focuses on accountability stories – specifically, the forces promoting scientific and medical disinformation. Her coverage includes the impacts of birth control misinformation, the lucrative world of covid misinformation and the toll of malnutrition on children in Gaza. She said she prioritizes these types of stories because they go a long way in highlighting the truth.

Kursk: mixed messages

During this week, we continued to observe a rather mixed, if not confused, set of messages in the pro-Kremlin ecosystem trying to explain what was going on. The earlier week was dominated by surprise, shock and disbelief. The Kremlin machine has since kicked in to stem the feeling of panic.

In essence, the following main narratives now co-exist:

• It’s an existential threat. The Ukrainian advance is a heinous plan by the US, the West, NATO, and others. It is a serious threat to the very existence of the Russian Federation which therefore would merit a nuclear response(opens in a new tab) under current Russian nuclear doctrine and strategy(opens in a new tab).
• A civilian nuclear catastrophe awaits. Accompanying the existential threat-logic, a busy campaign has suggested that the Ukrainian aim was to attack the Kursk nuclear power plant and create a civil nuclear catastrophe. This attempt to provoke fear of another Chernobyl-type disaster(opens in a new tab) has become a Kremlin classic together with Moscow’s frequent, baseless accusations against Ukraine of planning reckless attacks on the Ukrainian nuclear power plant near Zaporizhzhia, which is now occupied by Russian forces.
• Don’t worry. The Ukrainian operation is doomed to failure. It is a disorganised, desperate attempt to raise the low morale among the ‘neo-Nazis’ (Kremlin jargon(opens in a new tab) for Ukrainian soldiers). Together with this runs the claim that Zelenskyy just wanted to divert attention away from his supposed political problems. Moscow still tries to advance the story that Zelenskyy is not a legitimate president. A related claim alleges that the West has already lost faith in Zelenskyy and is preparing a change of leaders in Kyiv. Obviously, this assertion is designed to erode popular support for the war effort in Ukraine.

What's True

Vance was indeed given the name James Donald Bowman at birth, after his biological father …

What's False

… but, officially, he has only changed his name twice, not three times. The first name change was the result of his adoption by his stepfather. The second name change was one he requested as he was about to graduate from Yale Law School, a year before he got married.

Take the quiz, test your media literacy!

The key facts

• Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz signed a bill in 2023 that provides paid family leave starting in January 2026.
• Democrats in Congress have proposed the Family Act since 2013, but this paid family leave plan has not progressed.
• President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better proposal initially included four weeks of paid family leave, but Sen. Joe Manchin, then a Democrat, objected to the bill. Without Republican support, that doomed the bill. The legislation that became the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act did not include family leave.

The thing that worries me the most is that disinformation leads to violence. It’s not so much just the actual disinformation, but it’s the effects of that and the side effects of that in our society. That disinformation [about the LGBTQ+ community] really does lead to societal vitriol and violence against the queer community.

Shoutout to @dactylotheca@suppo.fi for mentioning the "Firehose of Falsehood" in a comment in this post, which led me to read the article, which led me to post it here :p

Although the piece was published in 2016, it's still very relevant today, and is definitely worth a look.