September 2022
As part of the program Regional Initiative to Combat Disinformation, we present you a new analyses of fake news and disinformation narratives.
The end of the era of abundance: Why Europe is threatened with “five to 10 hard winters”?
The Serbian branch of the Russian portal Sputnik used the current crisis in Europe associated with an unprecedented drought as a reason for an analysis in which it is shown that Europe is coming to the end of abundances. For the Sputnik journalist, the drought in Europe is nothing more than a sign that “heaven conspired to punish” citizens whose governments have imposed sanctions on Russia.
“The worst drought in the last 500 years, as described by the European Commission, and the hunger stones that appeared as a result of it, indicating low water levels and heralding a tragedy, will make the Russian winter in Europe even colder,” writes Sputnik journalist Nikola Vrzić.
It is concluded that Europe deserved nothing else after turning against Russia. Europe, according to Sputnik, did exactly what it had to do in order to „reduce its precious European life standards to levels closer to standards in the countries of the Third world – which the same Europe in the past colonized and plundered to achieve those once high standards, that used to be a matter of envy in the plundered Third world, which included Serbia.” Due to the colonialist approach, the drought in Europe is for Sputnik Serbia a proof that “the Wheel of Fortune turns”.
In a subtitle, Sputnik Serbia writes that people in Europe will starve to death. They used the European Commission’s report entitled “Drought in Europe, August 2022” for that claim. Sputnik does not convey the exact data of the report, but actually adds words to the text which modify the tone of the entire report of the European Commission on the state of agriculture in EU member states due to the drought. Thus, Sputnik adds that the record low water level is an “ominous omen”.
What the European Commission’s report from August states is that parts of the EU could face another three months of hot and dry weather. The EU report is focused not only on the member states of the European Union, but the entire continent. The document also mentions the drought in Serbia, which particularly affects the country’s energy sector.
Sputnik does not mention that in the text. It is further concluded that “the shortage of toilet paper is still the least of the problems that await societies in the West”. “In fact, people will die this winter because of the energy prices.” For such a conclusion, Sputnik uses sources from the West, such as a text from the media Bloomberg and the statement of the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who stated that “Europe has never seen anything like this.”
It is not mentioned that the heat wave in China led to record low rainfall and unprecedented drought along the Yangtze River, the longest river in China. Low river levels have reduced production at hydroelectric plants in provinces such as Hubei, and major cities such as Shanghai have already introduced electricity restrictions.
Mentioning only the drought and the energy crisis in Europe, although the situation is similar in almost the entire world, this article by Sputnik, like many published on this portal, aims to show that Europe is falling apart only because of the fact that it imposed sanctions on Russia which do not produce results.