Just a few quotes from the videos that the talking heads of Megafon are currently posting on Facebook proclaiming that “left-wing politicians are dragging us into the third world war”.
As of the publication of this article, we have identified a total of 29 advertised videos on this topic from 10 members of Megafon Centre, for which, since the first ad was published,
in the last 3 weeks, they spent roughly 40-43 million HUF (€100k-108k) on Facebook.
The data on ads and spendings are collected in this chart.
The almost identical short videos try to demonstrate that there is a threat of a “third world conflagration” because
The videos underline that although Europeans want peace, these politicians do not care about their voters and their country, they are paid by the American billionaire George Soros, and they want the war to continue because of their business interests.
– these are the highly sensationalist and fear-mongering conclusions of the videos we have analysed, which suggest that the only solution is for voters to chase away “war-hungry politicians” on 9 June, the European elections.
This narrative is eerily similar to the main slogan of Fidesz 2022 parliamentary elections campaign, that “the left would lead Hungary to war, the Fidesz government is the guarantee of peace”. The current message is in fact an extension of this to the international “left” and the "globalist elite" ahead of the European elections.
But the fear-mongering messages are based on statements taken out of context and misleading conclusions
– we found by examining five of the statements that appear most often in the 29 Megafon videos advertised on Facebook. Let's look at them one by one!
At the heart of the Megafon's videos is the claim that the French president would send troops to Ukraine. This is indeed what Macron said on 27 February in Paris at a press conference. To be precise, he said:
However, Macron's statements were openly disagreed with by the leaders of several countries.
Polish President Andrzej Duda said after the Paris meeting that the most heated debate was over whether to send troops to Ukraine, but no decision had been taken, with leaders differing on the issue. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz clearly rejected Macron's idea, as did the French opposition, and a spokesman for the US National Security Council said that “Joe Biden has made it clear that the US will not send troops to Ukraine.” However, Estonia and Lithuania have not completely rejected Macron's idea. And NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said NATO allies would continue to support Ukraine, but there were no plans to send troops there.
Megafon's propagandists also talk about the French president linking the sending of NATO troops to Ukraine to a specific event: if the Russians break through the front at Kiev or Odessa. Megafon's videos refer to a report in the French newspaper L’Indépendant that, in support of his claims in Paris, Macron said in a meeting with leaders of French parliamentary parties on 7 March that “the advance of the front towards Odessa or Kiev” could trigger French intervention.
In mid-March, Le Monde also published an article in which Macron said in a closed meeting at the Élysée Palace at the end of February that “in any case, I will be forced to send some men to Odessa next year.” However, Newsweek's fact-check warns that the Le Monde journalist did not hear Macron say this personally, only that he had heard such a sentence uttered. The president's office has not commented on the rumour.
In several of the Megafon videos, Macron is quoted as saying that he is not afraid to use nuclear weapons. To confirm this, a video clip is also shown where Macron says that France has an established doctrine and that when it comes to nuclear weapons, “no discussions are needed”.
The following sentence is from an interview with Le Figaro on 14 March. Macron does indeed say this, but in the Megafon videos only the first part of the statement is quoted, even though it strongly nuances the meaning of the French president's words:
“Our nuclear capacity gives the French people a security that few countries in the world have. As a power equipped with such strength, it is our responsibility to avoid escalation.”
Radoslaw Sikorski did indeed say at a conference that NATO troops are already present in Ukraine and thanked the countries that have taken the risk for their support. However, he did not say which countries.
In Megafon's videos, it is suggested that these soldiers are fighting in Ukraine, but little is actually known about how many, if any, NATO soldiers are in the country and in what capacity.
In an Euractiv article, it is reported that the troops deployed are not intended to engage in direct combat with Ukrainian forces. The Polish newspaper Onet reports that Sikorski referred in his speech to military trainers who, among other things, train Ukrainians in the use of Western equipment.
The UK has previously said that it had sent small units to Ukraine to help with medical training, among other things.
Indeed, German Federal Education Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger said in mid-March that “in Germany, students need to be much better prepared for the possible crises and disasters they may face in their lives and which could threaten their freedom”.
She also said that she believes students should be taught what to do in the event of war, pandemic or natural disaster, and that it is important for them to know how the German army contributes to Germany's security.
However, in the Megafon videos, this information is used as further proof that the “left-wing politicians of the West” want war at all costs, and children are being dragged into this. This is taken out of context in the same way as in an earlier Megafon video that the German Federal Minister of Health is already preparing the health sector for war. We saw the same strategy there:
a false conclusion that Germany wants to go to war is drawn from an otherwise true piece of information.
In 2017, the Hungarian government ordered schools and kindergartens to prepare a Defence Action Plan to prepare for a possible terrorist threat, state of emergency, or unexpected attack.
Megafon videos contrast the "war psychosis" of globalists with the desire for peace of Europeans. To back this, they cite an analysis by the government funded research institute, Századvég, published on 4 March under the title “Pan-European NO to Emmanuel Macron's war plans”.
According to the pro-government research center:
“There is no European country where a majority would support Ukraine by sending troops.”
However, the analysis is in itself seriously misleading, as it uses research that was carried out long before Macron's ominous statement was made.
The question quoted from the survey (“Would you agree or disagree that your country should send troops to Ukraine?”) was answered by citizens of European countries in 2023. This result certainly cannot be seen as a “pan-European NO” to “Macron's war plans”.
In a previous article on Lakmusz, we compared the results of the Századvég survey with other EU opinion polls, which painted a different picture of Europeans' attitudes to the Russian-Ukrainian war than the one presented by the pro-government research institute.
The Public Opinion Monitoring Unit of the European Parliament, for example, has been tracking the opinions of European citizens since the outbreak of Russia's war against Ukraine, monitoring and collecting published surveys and polls. The first of these was in March 2022, the most recent in February this year, thus, so far, we have not seen any major pan-European polls responding to Macron’s statements.
The Megafon videos claim that both the Western and the Hungarian “left” are funded by “Soros”, and they want to go to war because they can make big money. Into this line of thought is linked US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who, according to one Megafon video, talks about
“90 percent of the defense aid we give is actually spent here in the United States.”
Blinken did say this, on 7 December last year, at a press conference in Washington with David Cameron, the UK Foreign Secretary. The US Secretary of State's response was precisely:
“If you look at the investments that we’ve made in Ukraine’s defense to deal with this aggression, 90 percent of the security assistance we’ve provided has actually been spent here in the United States with our manufacturers, with our production, and that’s produced more American jobs, more growth in our own economy. So this has also been a win-win that we need to continue.”
This was reported in the Washington Post at the end of November last year. However, this means that most of the defense spending in Ukraine was not given directly to Ukraine by the Americans, but was spent in the US on, for example, weapons or equipment which were then sent to Ukraine.
Blinken was therefore talking exclusively about US defense spending, while trying to make it acceptable to the US electorate to continue supporting Ukraine's war, arguing that this would also strengthen US industry.
Cover illustration by Réka Szulágyi
Translated by Benedek Totth
