“Nulta Tachka” – Serbia’s anti-Western propaganda channel
It’s not very difficult to note that every other post on the website is anti-Western and portrays Western countries as unjust, controversial and full of crime. Conspiracy theories aimed at fostering disruption and uncertainty among citizens are based on a few postulates or main ideas: migration, the World Economic Forum, COVID vaccination and all the best regarding Putin and Russia.
It’s not very difficult to note that every other post on the website is anti-Western and portrays Western countries as unjust, controversial and full of crime. Conspiracy theories aimed at fostering disruption and uncertainty among citizens are based on a few postulates or main ideas: migration, the World Economic Forum, COVID vaccination and all the best regarding Putin and Russia.
Author: Miroslava Simonovska
Serbian fact-checkers recently drew the public’s attention to the website “Nulta Tachka” when they analyzed disinformation with the thesis of “depopulation of a billion whites by 2030″ that was posted on this portal. In the post, as almost always when it comes to content from this webpage, the “bad guys” are the West, Ukraine, the US and the World Economic Forum (WEF). In this particular case, they even invented that there is a document—a memorandum of the WEF, which conspires to depopulate the white population, even though such a document never existed.
“Nulta Tachka” is a constant source of inspiration for fact-checking not only in North Macedonia, but in the entire Balkans because of the Serbian language, understood across all countries of the former Yugoslavia, where it was the dominant language. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, anti-vaccine disinformation was continuously posted on this site. One of the modes of disseminating disinformation that this website uses is that they find a true news story, or a true media report, and then add a complete fabrication to make it disinformation.
One such headline on the website reads: “EU asks Elon Musk to hire more censors on Twitter-there is too much freedom of speech.” The post uses the word “censors” as a deliberate substitute for the word “moderators” of Twitter content, which is not the same as “censors”, and additionally, part of the quote on the website is also made up, i.e. the words “there is too much freedom of speech.”
The owner of “Nulta Tachka” portrayed Macron as gay
“Fake News Tragach” caught the owner of “Nulta Tachka”, Mario Bojic, as he published a photo of the French President Emmanuel Macron on the social network X, in which he appears to be kissing an unknown man on a yacht. However, that is a photo extracted from video material created with the help of artificial intelligence.
“Nulta Tachka’s” portfolio of anti-Western narratives and articles that favor the Kremlin is abundant. It’s not very difficult to note that every other post on the website is anti-Western and portrays Western countries as unjust, controversial and full of crime. Conspiracy theories aimed at fostering disruption and uncertainty among citizens are based on a few postulates or main ideas: migration, the World Economic Forum, COVID vaccination and all the best for Putin and Russia.
The trend of Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine, launched in February 2022, being blamed on NATO and the EU, i.e. accusing them of being its planners and instigators, does not stop in 2024. Thus, “Nulta Tachka” only quotes sources that warn of the escalation of the situation in Ukraine on an international scale through the so-called Third World War. This is done only by citing sources that are critical of aid provided to Ukraine for self-defense. On the 21st of August of this year, “Nulta Tachka” wrote:
Western supporters of Ukraine could trigger a Third World War if they provide Kiev with weapons that can be used for shooting targets on Russian soil, Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said.
Salvini is a far-rightist who has been criticized in the past for his support for Putin and has posted pro-Russian views on social network sites. He is also a frequent source for Russian RT, and in this case for the statement that “the West risks triggering World War III” by providing aid to Ukraine, though with long-range weapons that can also be used on Russian territory.
Additionally, “Nulta Tachka’s” articles use terminology that portrays the West as a censor and commander of the war in Ukraine, which, in fact was started by Russia in 2014, with the annexation of Crimea. In that manner, for example, in an article from the 24th of August of this year, Kadyrov’s statement is reported as follows:
The Ukrainian authorities received the order from their western masters to destroy everything related to Russia. The Kiev regime decided to ban the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church at the behest of the West, and that is why there is no need to negotiate with Ukraine, but go to the end. The devil himself could not come up with something like that, not a human. For that they need to be destroyed. They have no faith, nor anything human. They are not thinking about anything.
In the one-sided propagandistic attitudes that reflect only the worldview of the Kremlin, and which flourish unimpeded on “Nulta Tachka’s” website, they certainly “forget” to point out that the majority of Ukrainians are Orthodox Christians, still, the branch of the church associated with Russia (known under the name Ukrainian Orthodox Church), is the one that was banned in Ukraine recently, with accusations of complicity in Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Ukraine’s leadership has accused the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of justifying the war against Ukraine and spreading pro-Russian propaganda, as well as housing spies in churches. That is under no command of the West. It is a domestic affair of a sovereign and independent state, which Ukraine indeed is and has been operating under martial law for more than 2 years. Authorities in Ukraine have brought multiple criminal charges, including treason, against multiple priests from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. At least one priest has been sent to Russia as part of a prisoner exchange. Polls in Ukraine have shown that 82 percent of Ukrainians do not trust the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, while only 8 percent of citizens do. One more detail is missing in the mentioned text of the Serbian portal, which is that the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (as opposed to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church), is the one through which the great majority of Ukrainian Orthodox Christians practice their faith.
Even topics about past events related to the use of forced laborers in Nazi-occupied Poland, are reported in a tendentious manner on “Nulta Tachka’s” website, so when reporting on a German biscuit company that from 1940 to 1945 used such a workforce for the operation of the plants, the most important thing is not stated– that the company apologizes for that period.
Instead, “Nulta Tachka” tends to point out that they “admitted that they acquired the wealth through forced labor.” In “Nulta Tachka’s” article it is not even stated that the biscuit company, otherwise a producer of the famous Leibniz butter cookies, voluntarily paid 750 thousand euros in 2000-2001 to a foundation established by German companies, to compensate 20 million forced workers exploited by the Nazis.
“Nulta Tachka” tries to create non-existent tensions between Western countries and Ukraine, using untrue headlines. Namely, in the article titled “The Dutch government will review its relations with Ukraine if Kiev’s involvement in the sabotage of the Nord Stream is proven,” the text itself refers only to unanswered indicative questions, i.e. no one has said that relations will be reconsidered, except for the author of “Nulta Tachka’s” article. Even in the text itself, the title is refuted! Namely, these are questions asked by far-right MPs, with no response from the Dutch government, nor any notice that they will “reconsider relations with Ukraine.”
“If it is true that President Zelensky knew about the attack in advance, can you say what the consequences are? If not, why not?” says “Nulta Tachka’s” article, which quotes questions asked by right-wing MPs in the Netherlands, to which there is no response from the government.
Many questioned the legitimacy of the Ukrainian leader after his presidential term officially ended in May.
Disinformation and manipulation about migrants
The topic of migration is also covered, but in a controversial and unethical way. There is a tendency to portray migration as an uncontrollable “problem” in Europe. The number of cases in which foreigners sought asylum, in a completely unprofessional manner, is equated to the number of illegal migrations. The acts that incite riots are relativized, and an attempt to present Germany as the cradle of crime is also present. Such “analytics” exist for several countries of the European Union, except Russia, for which no “analysis” are made regarding crime, migration, or human rights, that is, no interest is expressed in considering the country’s internal issues. There are only a few exceptions, which again, only serve the purpose of stigmatizing the EU, glorifying Russia as the cradle of traditional and family values at the expense of marginalized groups in the EU who are being stigmatized.
Thus, in “Nulta Tachka’s” article, which refers to the mpox epidemic (monkeypox), it is stated that in Russia they are not afraid of it, since they do not have men who have sex with other men, instead they have traditional values, so there is nothing to worry about when it comes to this disease. However, the WHO (World Health Organization) has registered 4 cases of mpox in the Russian Federation. Aside from the fact that homosexual intercourse is only one of the ways in which this disease is transmitted, there are many other ways of transferring bodily fluids from an infected person that are far, far more common when it comes to the spread of this disease.
Propaganda about the traditional values that protect against mpox are not questioned, but everything that happens in the European countries is. Thus, for example, the decision of a municipal administration in Amsterdam to ban its civil servants from using the Telegram messaging service on their work phones is called “censorship”, although it does not apply to other cities in the Netherlands, nor to private phones.
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