Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about an undemocratic EU, part of a wider campaign to discredit European democracy ahead of the European Parliament elections. The EU is not ‘NATO’s political arm’. Though EU-NATO cooperation constitutes an integral pillar of European defence and their security are inter-connected, both are independent of each other, as it is clear from the list of their nation members. NATO includes 9 states that are not members of the European Union, while 4 EU members are not part of the Atlantic Alliance. The European Union is a sovereign entity created by the voluntary initiative of European nations and it has its own, independent foreign policy.

This is a recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative aimed to defame President Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian leadership to absolve Russia from its responsibility for the fact that Ukraine cannot hold elections for the moment. Since 2022, Russia has waged large-scale armed aggression against Ukraine and is also responsible for the outbreak of the conflict in 2014, after having illegally annexed the Crimean Peninsula and engineered the creation of rebel militias in Donetsk, Luhansk and other places, with its army actively participating in military clashes. Further, Zelenskyy’s reported decision to postpone next year’s presidential poll was made in accordance with current Ukrainian legislation. Article 19 of the 2015 Ukrainian law “On the Legal Regime of Martial Law” directly prohibits the holding of presidential and several other types of elections during wartime.