Original article (in Bosnian) was published on 11/04/2022
In the text for the website IN4S, Dzevad Galijasevic made incorrect allegations about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, calling it “a special military operation”. Shortly after the announcement, the text was shared by the public media RTRS and Srna.
On April 5, 2022, the website IN4S published an article signed by Dzevad Galijasevic, entitled:
Special and liberation operation “Putin’s Doctrine”
In the introductory part of this extensive article, in which Galijasevic discusses the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the term “special military operation” continues to be used.
So, I am sure that the United States understands the justification of the reasons for conducting the special military operation in Ukraine, but although they understand – they do not recognize it. The Russian Federation did not even expect that.
In the introduction to the article, Galijasevic states that there is no NATO document in which Russia is not defined as a “military enemy”. Explaining the reasons for the war in Ukraine, which he calls “a special military operation”, he also stated that Russia had to “remove” NATO from its border and “clean up the centers for the development of weapons of mass destruction”.
To remove the already announced NATO threat from Ukraine, clean the centers for the development of weapons of mass destruction, biochemical laboratories under the control of the Pentagon and prevent the development of nuclear potential was a question of Russia’s survival within its borders.
As another cause of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, Galijasevic cites the “denazification” of that country.
Certainly to protect the endangered inhabitants of Donetsk and Luhansk (DNR and LNR) and protect the strategic position of the Crimean peninsula, which voluntarily and in a referendum demanded a return to the auspices of Russia’s territorial integrity and, finally, demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine.
Galijasevic also referred to the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, which he claims was organized by the American authorities with the help of “Bosnian mujahedeen”.
According to Galijasevic, the 9/11 attack was in fact the “return” of the American interventionist Monroe Doctrine, which initially referred to interventions in the countries of North and South America.
Galijasevic claims that this doctrine was globalized after the Cold War, citing the Gulf War, the bombing of the Republic of Srpska Army in BiH and the self-proclaimed Republic of Srpska Krajina, and the bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia as examples of his thesis.
The attack on the World Trade Center, organized by the American authorities and secret services with the help of the Bosnian Mujahideen, is the cornerstone of this new doctrine.
The article was then published in an abbreviated version by the news agency Srna, under the following title:
RUSSIA – A POWERFUL FORCE BECAUSE AMERICA IS NERVOUS
It was also shared by RTRS, the public broadcaster of the Republic of Srpska, Alternative Television and several other websites.
In the version published by Srna, Galijasevic was presented as an “expert in the fight against terrorism”.
Counter-terrorism expert Dzevad Galijasevic said that Russia is a capable and powerful state, whose response to Ukraine’s NATO environment has called into question the entire decades-long work of the North Atlantic Alliance, so the United States is angry, nervous and indignant.
Also, unlike the original article published by IN4S, the version published by Srna does not include the claim regarding the attack on the World Trade Center.
What are the facts?
In their coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, some media outlets have openly sided with Russian war propaganda, promoting Putin’s claim of “denazification” of Ukraine and preventing the alleged genocide in Donbas.
Galijasevic also used the allegation of “denazification” of Ukraine in the analyzed article.
The pro-Russian narrative describes the attack on Ukraine in terms such as “special military operation in Donbas” and “counter-offensive”, the Russian army as “liberating”, and Russian warfare efforts are kept to a minimum and portrayed in a positive light.
In the analysis below, Raskrinkavanje has written about how the media are using this narrative:
https://raskrinkavanje.ba/analiza/ne-postoji-kontraofanziva-rusije-u-ukrajini
The story about labs for developing biological weapons in Ukraine is part of the Russian propaganda narrative. The Russian side promotes the story of the threat posed by such laboratories, located in the former Soviet republics and allegedly backed by the United States of America (USA).
According to Forbes, this narrative, which the Russian political leadership has been promoting for years, was also used to justify the invasion of Ukraine. Interestingly, this narrative is also promoted by supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory, which originated in the United States.
In one of the previous analyzes, we wrote how the claims about American biological weapons laboratories have existed in our speaking area since 2015. In the context of the war in Ukraine, they were popularized on the Twitter account @WarClandestine, where they were published just after the invasion began. The owner of the account is a supporter of the QAnon conspiracy theory.
However, there is no evidence that the United States is financing the development of biological weapons in Ukraine or that this country is developing them. According to the BBC, several public health laboratories in Ukraine are working on researching and eliminating the danger of dangerous diseases.
Some of these laboratories have received financial and other support from the United States, the European Union and the World Health Organization – as is the case with many other countries.
According to the BBC, in the 1990s, the United States launched the Biological Threat Reduction Program to reduce the risk of biological weapons remaining in the countries that emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union, including Ukraine.
As part of that program, certain laboratories in Ukraine received funding from the United States for modernization and equipment, but these laboratories are not managed by the United States, nor do they create biological weapons.
In its analysis from February 24, 2022, Politifact explains that such laboratories do not exist, which was confirmed by Andrew Andy Weber, a member of the Board of Directors of the Arms Control Association and former Assistant Minister of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense Programs.
In fact, the U.S. Department of Defense’s Threat Reduction Cooperation Program has been providing technical support to Ukraine’s health ministry since 2005 to upgrade public health laboratories, whose mission is analogous to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Weber told PolitiFact.
“These laboratories have recently played an important role in stopping the spread of Covid-19”, he added.
Find more details about conspiracy theories and inaccurate claims related to laboratories in Ukraine in Raskrinkavanje’s analyzes, which you can read below:
https://raskrinkavanje.ba/analiza/napad-na-ukrajinu-nema-veze-s-americkim-biolaboratorijama
In addition to incorrect allegations about laboratories in Ukraine, Galijasevic also referred to the nuclear potential in that country as another reason for Russian aggression. Allegations that Ukraine was trying to develop nuclear weapons are also present in the media as part of a pro-Russian narrative.
All available data clearly indicate that Ukraine did not work on the development of nuclear weapons, and you can read the details in the analysis published by Raskrinkavanje on March 16, 2022:
In addition to the pro-Russian narrative of a “special and liberation operation” and inaccurate and unfounded allegations about Pentagon-controlled laboratories in Ukraine, Galijasevic reiterated a decades-old conspiracy theory about the 2001 attack.
Galijasevic, without any argument, claims that the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, in which nearly 3,000 people were killed when hijacked planes crashed into the Twin Towers in New York, the Pentagon near Washington and a field in Pennsylvania, was organized by US authorities and secret services with the help of “Bosnian mujahedeen”.
Numerous media reports wrote that the conspiracy theories according to which the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, was actually organized by the US Secret Service do not lose their popularity.
In a report from 2021, the BBC published an article in which it is said that such conspiracy theories are spreading 20 years later.
All available facts show that this attack was precisely a terrorist act during which 19 militants connected to the terrorist group Al-Qaeda hijacked four planes.
Extensive documentation compiled into the 9/11 Commission report, followed by reports from U.S. government agencies and expert groups, provides evidence that the alleged plan by U.S. authorities and secret services is, in fact, a conspiracy theory. Allegations that the “plan” was implemented with the help of “Bosnian mujahedeen” are unfounded.
Dzevad Galijasevic has long been known for making various unverified and inaccurate claims, which we have dealt with several times.
The claim that he is an “expert in the fight against international terrorism” is not true either. In fact, it was indirectly disputed by Galijasevic himself, who commented on the media’s title of “expert on terrorism” in an interview with the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) in BiH in December 2019:
Galijasevic told BIRN BiH that he considered himself an alternative source of information on terrorism and did not ask the media to sign him as an expert.
“They ask me about something, ad hoc analysis. They usually find me in the car either in class or somewhere. They find me, I give a statement, I give an opinion. What will they make of it, I have a better job to do than to check whether something was used sensationally or not”, says Galijasevic.
Given all the facts, we assess the claim in the article on the website IN4S suggesting that Russia wants to “clean up the centers for the development of weapons of mass destruction, biochemical laboratories under the control of the Pentagon and prevent the development of nuclear potentials”, with allegations of demilitarization and “denazification” as fake news. According to all available data, laboratories in Ukraine are part of the public health of this country. Some are partly funded by the United States, but not because of the development of biological weapons and/or weapons of mass destruction. We also assess the claim as a conspiracy theory.
All subsequent publications of this claim are assessed as the distribution of fake news and conspiracy theory.
The claim that the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, was carried out by the US authorities and the secret services, we assess as a conspiracy theory.
