Wrote: Fatbardh Dema
It has been claimed that NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has threatened the United States with expulsion from the alliance if President-elect Donald Trump "hands Ukraine over to Putin."
The claim was made by the account "x65world” on TiktTok on Sunday, November 10.
But, after verifying the facts by hibrid.info, it turns out that this claim is false and the source is a suspicious channel on Telegram.
How was the truth found?
"'If Trump hands Ukraine over to Putin, then America will be expelled from the Alliance' - Mark Rutte-NATO Secretary General'", is the caption that the account in question put on the photo showing Rutte and Donald Trump, winner of the US presidential election, on November 5.
The publication has received more than 30 thousand views by the time of treatment by hibrid.info. It also has more than 100 comments and almost 600 likes. Among the comments there are also accounts that have questioned the content, and the publisher has said that the source is from the social network X.
Using the same quote in "Google", hibrid.info has not been able to find any credible source in the Albanian language.
While when the same text was searched on Google, but in English, hibrid.info found that the same content was published on X (former Twitter) under the account "Leandro Romão". This account used two photos as a source in which a text from the website "nato.news-pravda.com".
This website used Rutte's alleged quote as its headline, while not providing any details about where or when it was said.
Finally, the source of the article is the “Slavyangrad” Telegram account. Hibrid.info has found this Telegram channel and the claim appears to be the same, but again without any source as to where it may have been said or when.
Using online search engines, hibrid.info found a study by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Balkan Service on how Russia spreads fake news in the Balkans. All of the suspicious websites that were found in this September study had the same structure and even the same name: “pravda” or “truth.” Most of the content appears to have been taken from pro-Kremlin Telegram channels. Publications on the Telegram channel and their subsequent re-publication on the “Pravda” websites take between 3 and 12 minutes. (The details)
And "Slavyangrad", which was the source of the publication in question, was mentioned on another occasion as a pro-Kremlin channel by "atlanticcouncil.org".
What did Rutte say about Trump's election?
"I just congratulated Donald Trump on his election as President of the United States. His leadership will once again be key to keeping our Alliance strong. I look forward to working with him again to advance peace through strength through NATO.", wrote Rutte in X. (here)
Analyze:
Through a post in Albanian on TikTok, it was claimed that NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has threatened the US with expulsion from this alliance if President-elect Donald Trump "hands Ukraine over to Putin."
After fact-checking by hibrid.info, it was confirmed that this claim is false and was found to have been published by a pro-Kremlin Telegram account.
Rutte congratulated President Trump on his X account, adding that he looks forward to working with him again to advance peace through NATO.
Based on its work methodology, hibrid.info assesses this content as "Fake News".
Reasoning:
The “Fake News” rating is given to informational content that is entirely fabricated or that contains factually incorrect claims or information. Content that is rated as fake news can be defined as having been created and distributed with the intent to misinform the public, i.e., to present a claim that is completely false as fact.