Original title: Putin said Thessaloniki is a Macedonian city
On June 1, 2020, the portal Mkdpress.site published an article with the headline: “PUTIN SAID THESSALONIKI IS A MACEDONIAN CITY”. The text of the article says that Thessaloniki is Macedonian and that Russian gas will pass through Macedonia, as well as that Mr. Sergei Lavrov said that the time of the West (EU, NATO and Vatican) has passed and now “our” time is coming. Furthermore, the author of this article says: “We are only waiting for the World Cup in Russia to finish now and after watch how the Russian bear will devour.”
Namely, in 2019, the website Mkdpress.site published an article with almost identical content and title, which was then shared on the Facebook page “Macedonian Coalition”. Most likely, the text of the article published on Mkdpress.site, an abbreviated version, is taken from the website Macedonian Nation.
The link to the recycled news can be found here.
The link to the archived original news can be found here.
First of all, this is manipulation and false news. Namely, the author of the article in question did not attach a link to a video or speech where the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, has stated that Thessaloniki is a Macedonian city. With Google search no evidence can be found, not even a post on any foreign portal, that Mr. Putin had said those words. This leads to the conclusion that this is false news that aims to manipulate the public and disrupt good neighborly relations with Greece.
In the past, Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly spoken on topics related to Macedonian history, on which he had differing views. In 2012, in a panel discussion at the World Forum in Russia, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that in the past, “in order to deal with economic problems, Alexander the Great had gone to war with Persia and conquered it. Now Greece cannot win a single victory.” In other words, the Russian president implies that Alexander the Great was Greek.
On May 24, 2017, during the first bilateral meeting of former President Gjorge Ivanov with his Russian counterpart, President Vladimir Putin noted that “the Slavic alphabet and literacy in Russia came from Macedonian soil.”
The official position of the Russian Federation regarding the former name dispute has always been expressed through a global geopolitical prism, i.e. the center of the position has always been the expansion of NATO and Western influence in the Republic of North Macedonia, and not some specific views on the content of the dispute itself. The following words are part of a statement by Russian Ambassador to Greece Andrei Maslov in 2018: “Russia does not oppose the Prespa Agreement on the name issue, but opposes Macedonia’s NATO membership. […] If Athens and Skopje reached an agreement on the name and if it is officially accepted by the Constitution of the Republic of Macedonia, then we will recognize that decision.” However, Russia has found a way to express its dissatisfaction, so it went so far as manipulating, by saying that constitutional changes are being brought under pressure and blackmail and that Macedonia’s membership in NATO will not contribute to a stable Western Balkans. The F2N2 team has previously written on these topics.
Regarding the article in question, it is obvious that this is recycled fake news that was first published on the website Macedonian Nation on July 4, 2018, by the author Aleksandar Dzepovski, during the FIFA World Cup in the Russian Federation. What is indicative of the announcement from 2018 is that it happens immediately after the signing of the Prespa Agreement, which ended the several-decade-old name dispute.The same news was published on June 1, 2020 by the same author, only this time the text is attached to another website. But what is most flagrant is the fact that the text of the latest announcement of this false news says that “all this happened yesterday and he publicly said it to the Greeks, in their face.” Hence, it is unclear if the same case happened on 2 different dates in a time interval of two years (July 03, 2018 and May 31, 2020). This only indicates that it is a matter of manipulation and false news.
Freedom of speech and expression can be used for good, but it can also be used for bad purposes. Thus, a case of abuse of that right has been detected again, with the spread of misinformation. Due to the above, today, more than ever, the public must approach all information conscientiously and rationally, and critically reconsider their credibility, otherwise there will be a large number of those who will be manipulated and misinformed by such and similar posts on the Internet.
