Putin spreads false propaganda to undermine NATO

 There must have been some paranoia in Russia when the former satellite of East Germany came automatically under the NATO umbrella upon German reunification in 1990. However, the Kremlin has misrepresented and exaggerated NATO's perceived eastern expansion, using all the practised tools of the old Cominform. This propaganda has increased under Putin in order to justify to his own people and to sympathisers abroad his own attempt to recreate the empire of Catherine the Great.

Deutsche Welle has an article detailing Putin's efforts and debunking some Russian myths.

Since Ukraine's Maidan protest movement and the annexation of Crimea in 2014, Russia has tried to influence public opinion with targeted disinformation campaigns. While the extent of these efforts both at home and abroad has been hard to quantify since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly one year ago, experts tell DW that their intensity and scope have increased.

One narrative, begun even before the war, has been particularly persistent: That the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) — the 30-member European and North American military alliance established after World War II — is not only threatening Russia, but may even wish to invade it.
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For example, in a televised address a few days before the invasion, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that NATO was "expanding more and more," with its military infrastructure encroaching upon the country's borders. There is some truth to this. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, 14 Eastern European countries have joined NATO, four of them bordering Russia. Ukraine requested the chance to join via NATO's Membership Action Plan in 2008, and the country's initiative to join has only intensified since Russia's invasion.

It is also true that NATO has made logistical preparations in its Eastern European member states, in addition to preparing airfields for the rapid reinforcement of troops. However, this was also in response to Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014, which was illegal under international law. The NATO alliance continues to respect the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act, which prohibits the additional permanent deployment of substantial combat forces in NATO accession countries. 

But that has not deterred Putin from his claim that NATO is threatening Russia. Putin has also alleged that Ukrainians have perpetrated genocide against Russian-speaking people in the illegally annexed "republics" of Donetsk and Luhansk for years, and that these areas must be "denazified." Such false claims have been aimed primarily at a domestic audience. But the narrative has also had some impact in the West.

Sadly, it has taken in those old socialists who seem to be under the impression that Putin is still a communist. President Luis de Silva of Brazil has been one such, though one hopes that President Biden was able to open Lula's eyes on the latter's recent visit to Washington. Modi's support for Putin is of a different nature. The Indian prime minister sees Russia as the only reliable bulwark against threats from China and Pakistan. This is another front on which UK diplomacy has been found wanting in recent years.