Original article (in Bosnian) was published on 08/07/2022
Balkan Info’s journalist Nemanja Blagojevic posted a status in which it is claimed that the “Khazars” are behind the war in Ukraine. This is a conspiracy theory with anti-Semitic overtones.
On June 1, 2022, Nemanja Blagojevic posted a long status on his Facebook profile, trying to explain the “real cause” of the war in Ukraine, as well as the meaning of other important events in the world. The status states, among other things:
HOW WILL THE WAR IN UKRAINE END?
*Hasn’t that been clear to everyone for a long time… Well, by introducing digital identification of citizens, abolishing paper money, introducing every citizen into a computer database and mass surveillance of everything we do and say.
*Does anyone still think that this is a war of Orthodoxy against Satanism??? …So that Orthodox fight against Orthodox, Slav against Slav, brother against brother??? Are we looking forward to the victory of Russia, where the East of Ukraine, where the Russians live, has been completely destroyed and evicted. Do we think that the Russians and Ukrainians are behind this war and that it benefits them? As we can’t see, Khazars and Englishmen are laughing at the stupid Slavs….
(…)
*A few years ago, analyzing the foreign policy of the Khazarian elite, political sociology professor Zoran Milosevic gave an analysis that the Khazars are working hard to create a great Khazaria, and that the core of that Khazaria will be in Ukraine. He came to these conclusions by analyzing the influence of their political elite, projects and money in many European countries.
The post states that while the public’s attention is focused on the war in Ukraine, the world is losing the sovereignty of countries and civil liberties. According to the claims from the post, almost all the countries of the world have signed an agreement with the World Health Organization (WHO), according to which all the rights to manage measures in crises are allegedly handed over to non-governmental organizations under the control of the WHO, and people who oppose this will end up in camps. States that have not signed the treaty, as stated in the post, will control their citizens in another way – by chipping and introducing mass control and surveillance.
In the end, Blagojevic claims that every war is actually fought between a man and a demonic being and that the solutions to that problem are civil disobedience, harmony and prayer.
By the time of writing this analysis, Nemanja Blagojevic’s post has been shared over 150 times and has received more than six hundred comments and likes.
Who is Nemanja Blagojevic?
Raskrinkavanje has already written about the posts on Nemanja Blagojevic’s profile, in an analysis from June last year. As stated in it, Blagojevic participates in creating content for the Balkan Info web portal, where “conspiracy” content is often published.
Shows found on the YouTube channel Balkan Info featured people such as Mila Aleckovic, a psychiatrist who has been promoting “conspiracy” narratives about the pandemic since the beginning of the pandemic, and Semir Osmanagic, known for promoting claims about the existence of pyramids near Visoko in Bosnia and Herzegovina and advocating “treatment” of the COVID-19 disease with the help of negative ions, as well as Marija Stojakovic, an anti-vaccination activist who claims that “infectious diseases do not exist”. One of the most famous guests was the “conspiracyologist” Jovanka Jolic, who declared that the American billionaire Elon Musk originates from the Republic of Srpska and thereby “became famous” on funny pages on social networks (1, 2).
On the Balkan Info website, it is stated that Nemanja Blagojevic is a “history teacher” and a “journalist” whose main goal is “spreading knowledge as the only light in the darkness of Orwellian society”.
Although he claims to be a “journalist whose main goal is to spread knowledge”, Blagojevic publishes factually incorrect claims, conspiracy theories and complete nonsense on his Facebook profile, as stated in the analysis of Raskrinkavanje.
The war in Ukraine and “great Khazaria”
In his announcement, Blagojevic insinuates that the “English and the Khazars” are behind the war in Ukraine and that it is part of a larger plan to create a “greater Khazaria” centered in Ukraine.
The Khazars were members of nomadic tribes of the Turkic language group, which were first mentioned in the 5th century in the steppes of the North Caucasus. In the 6th century, they established a trading empire that covered the southeastern part of today’s European Russia. According to some written evidence from the 9th century, the Khazars adopted Judaism as their religion, although these claims are now questioned due to a lack of archaeological and physical evidence.
In the 13th century, they vanished as independent people.
One of the many anti-Semitic conspiracy theories was the one about the Khazars. Namely, some conspiracy theorists claim that the Khazars are “fake Jews” who are secretly trying to establish a “new Khazaria” on the territory of today’s Ukraine.
An article published on the website of the non-profit organization Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) on May 5 of this year detailed this conspiracy theory and how it is being used today to justify Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As it states, the conspiracy claims regarding the Khazars can be linked to the book by the Hungarian-British author Arthur Koestler, entitled “The Thirteenth Tribe”, in which he presents the extremely disputed claim that Ashkenazi Jews are descended from the Khazars, not from the Israelites.
Supporters of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories claim that the Rothschild family, the British royal family and many other persons and groups who are often the main actors of “conspiracy” narratives are Khazars (1, 2).
As stated in the ISD article, at the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, claims appeared on social networks that this country is actually ruled by the Khazars, and that now Russia is continuing the conflict that was stopped in the 8th century, when the Khazar tribes allegedly terrorized the Russian tribes :
One post shared on such [Telegram] channels, for example, claims that “the Khazarian mafia are the people we now call Ukrainian Nazis”. The post also claims that the Russians knew that the current war was a continuation of the conflict from the mid-8th century, when the Khazars tried to subjugate Russian tribes who rejected the Khazars’ love of drinking (preferably Russian) blood. It goes on to say that the Khazars manipulated human DNA, were possessed by demons, and destroyed the DNA of opposing tribes with biological weapons. The post also claims that when the Russian invaders threaten to reveal evidence of Khazarian “demons”, the Ukrainian “Khazars” will claim they were massacred to instigate a global war against Russia.
It is clear that there is no evidence to confirm that Ukraine is governed by members of an ancient nation that has not existed independently for almost a whole millennium. These claims, as well as claims of continued conflict in the 8th century, DNA destruction and demons, sound like a chapter from a sci-fi novel rather than something that is actually happening in reality.
Although Blagojevic does not make such detailed claims in his post, it is clear that he implies that the Khazars are to blame for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. One could conclude, considering that these people no longer exist in their original form, as well as their language, that the term “Khazars” is used by anti-Semites who avoid openly sharing conspiratorial, malicious claims about Jews.
As explained in the analysis published by Raskrinkanje in cooperation with partner fact-checking web portals from the region in April of this year, Russia’s attack on Ukraine directly violates Article 2, paragraph (4) of the UN Charter, which requires UN member states to to refrain from “the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state”.
Therefore, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has nothing to do with the “Khazars” or attempts to establish a “great Khazaria” on its territory.
Agreement with the World Health Organization and population control
Blagojevic states in his post:
*While our attention was focused on the war in Ukraine, something unprecedented is happening in the world, the loss of the sovereignty of countries and the freedom of citizens. Now, in May, the agreement between the “World Health Organization” and 194 countries (including Serbia) entered into force, according to which each country will sign a legally binding agreement with the WHO, according to which the signatory state handed over all rights of management and implementation of measures in crises to non-governmental organizations which work in cooperation with the WHO.
*In case of signing this agreement, the army and police would be subject to the orders of the WHO, global corporations, non-governmental organizations and individuals. In that agreement, the army and the police could act against their own people, and in case of resistance, the forces of the United Nations could also act.
*By accepting this agreement, the state would have to implement all WHO decisions without question, and this again means taking ownership of all countries by some global institutions and individuals and depriving the signatories of the agreement of their sovereignty.
*The WHO requests from the signatory countries the development of software for global electronic confirmation of vaccination, therefore, complete vaccination of its citizens.
*Since WHO believes that among the population, there is about 25 percent of “high-risk people” who will oppose, the construction of “camps” with guards is approved for them in order to prevent them from contact with the outside world (camps for disobeying the system).
The World Health Organization announced in December 2021 that it plans to begin the process of developing a global agreement on pandemic prevention and response.
The announcement states:
The Health Assembly met in a special session, the second since the establishment of the WHO in 1948, and adopted the decision entitled “The World Together”. The decision of the Assembly establishes an intergovernmental negotiating body (INB) for the drafting and negotiation of a WHO convention, agreement or other international instruments on prevention, preparedness and response to a pandemic, to adopt it according to Article 19 of the WHO Constitution or other provisions of the Constitution that INB considers it appropriate.
Article 19 of the WHO Constitution empowers the World Health Organization to adopt conventions or agreements on any matter within the competence of WHO.
This decision encouraged the creation and spread of conspiracy theories about its true meaning, and claims were made on social networks that in May of this year, the WHO signed an agreement with countries with which this organization would take control over the health of the population and deprive them of their sovereignty and imprison the unvaccinated (1, 2).
As explained by Reuters in an analysis from May this year, the legal instrument that currently defines the rights and obligations of member states in dealing with specific emergency situations in public health is considered insufficient to deal with the global pandemic, and negotiations on reforms are expected to take place in the next two years. Such negotiations include sensitive items proposed by Washington, such as the deployment of expert teams to outbreak sites and a new compliance committee to monitor the implementation of the rules, the WHO document showed. It also states that the World Health Organization does not have the ability to force member states to implement public health measures, even if the agreement is adopted.
Reuters contacted the World Health Organization about the claims made on social media. The spokesperson, commenting on the claims about imprisoning the unvaccinated, told the following:
“Such terms never entered into the negotiations on the proposed agreement […] Any agreement agreed upon by WHO member states is expected to include respect for and promotion of human rights as a key component – including the right to health – and to facilitate personal freedoms”, they said.
Therefore, the claim that almost all countries have signed an agreement with the World Health Organization, by which they hand over all control over health measures to this organization, is incorrect. The claim that people who disagree with this will be imprisoned in camps also has no basis. Nothing has been signed yet, and even if it is, it will not take away the ability of states to enact their own laws and measures in the field of public health.
The announcement also states that Iran and Russia, which still have not signed the non-existent agreement with the WHO, will control their citizens in other ways. Below the post, two pictures, two screenshots of the articles were published, and it is stated that Iran is introducing digital coupons, and Russia is trying to introduce a digital currency as quickly as possible.
The first screenshot is from an article on the Lifesite web portal, published on May 19, 2022. It talks about how Iran will introduce digital coupons for the purchase of bread for beneficiaries of state subsidies in order to, according to the authorities, reduce the amount of supplies demanded.
The second screenshot comes from an article published on the Beta web portal on May 29, 2022. It states that Russia is accelerating the introduction of digital currency due to Western sanctions and explains that these activities are potentially unfavorable for citizens as they would make personal finances completely transparent.
In any case, the decisions made in Iran and Russia have nothing to do with the World Health Organization, the loss of sovereignty or “great Khazaria”.
Given all the facts, we assess the claim that the Khazars are behind the war in Ukraine with the aim of establishing a “great Khazaria” on the territory of that country as fake news and a conspiracy theory.
We give the same assessment to the claims that “almost all countries” signed an agreement with the WHO, in which they renounced the right to control measures to protect public health, and that people who do not agree with the measures adopted by the WHO will be sent to camps.
