Pro-Russian political party “Rodina Makedonija” – disinformation, conspiracy theories and inciting hatred

The pro-Russian party “Rodina Makedonija” was a source of disinformation about Ukraine even before the start of the military invasion by Russia. Earlier, the party spread disinformation that incited hatred of NATO, the EU, the Prespa Agreement, Covid-19 and vaccinations, censuses and local elections

 

Author: Žarko Trajanoski, media analyst

 

The pro-Russian party “Rodina Makedonija” was a source of disinformation about Ukraine even before the start of the military invasion by Russia. On January 20, 2022, “Rodina Makedonija” organized a protest in front of the Ukrainian Embassy against the “glorification of Nazism in Ukraine”, a thesis that was denied by the Ukrainian Ambassador Natalia Zadorozhnyuk, who pointed out that “Nazism is not glorified in Ukraine, the country lost over 8 million people Second World War”. A day after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the pro-Russian party allowed prominent journalist Mirka Velinovska, who received a Medal for propaganda from Putin, to justify “military-technical intervention” in Ukraine as curbing a long-running process of “planetary fascism” through the so-called “Postmodern liberal-democratic Nazi fascism.”

The party “Rodina Makedonija” is one of the few anti-Western parties that openly support Putin for the “defascification” of Ukraine and who called for a protest entitled “NO TO RUSSOPHOBIA!” on March 12, 2022, chanting “Putin, Putin, in front of the Russian Embassy in Macedonia. The leader of the  party gave “clear support to Russia and the Russian people“, who were “facing the onslaught of Nazism in Europe.” Ten days later, the party boasted that it had held a meeting with the Russian ambassador, at which it expressed “great gratitude from the Russian side for the public support of the Macedonian people to Russia and the Russian people for the special operation for denationalization and demilitarization of Ukraine.”

The pro-Russian “Rodina Makedonija” appeared on the Macedonian political scene during 2019, first on social networks, and in 2020 as a registered party, with three basic orientations: “NO to the Prespa Agreement, NO to the European Union and NO to NATO!” This party, which presented itself as “the only sovereign option of the Macedonian people” and a fighter against “global fascism”, appears as a source and spreader of numerous disinformation and conspiracy theories, which incite distrust in democratic institutions and processes. “Rodina Makedonija” advocated a boycott of the presidential elections in 2019, delegitimization and prevention of the parliamentary elections in 2020, used the pandemic to spread disinformation and propagate “anti-vaxxer” messages, sabotaged and boycotted the population census and led an ultranationalist, anti-nationalist local elections in 2021. Although the party achieved modest results in the local elections, its propaganda messages deserve analysis, in the context of the wide range of strategies for Russian influence in Macedonia.

 

Pro-Russian “Rodina Makedonija” against NATO and EU, against the referendum and “Prespa Agreement”

The names Zoran Jovančev and Goran Šumkoski appeared as the main initiators and ideologues of the party (represented as an “abandoned part of United Macedonia“). Zoran Jovančev is a representative of the association “Macedonia and Russia (MiR)”, a collaborator of the all-Slavic movement “Rusov”, and a spokesman against the West, EU, NATO, and for the violation of the “Prespa Agreement”. Goran Šumkoski is a well-known geopolitical propagandist and ideologue of the “True Macedonian Path”, a representative of counter-hegemony in the Balkans, and a follower of Dugin’s geopolitical conspiracies. Jovančev claims that Dugin was brought to Skopje “through our friends in Belgrade“, his propaganda-militant texts were translated into the party newspaper, and he was quoted on the party page when he satanized the West as “the devil himself”.

The “ideologue” Šumkoski was actively involved in the Boycott movement and spread Russian misinformation and ancient myths through his portal “Kolozheg” and global pro-Russian propaganda channels, where he published anti-globalisation and anti-Western articles. In early 2018, during a protest in front of the Parliament, Šumkoski spoke against the “fascist globalization of Soros” and called for chanting against “NATO-fascists”. Although Jovančev and Šumkoski went public together as initiators and founders of “Rodina Makedonija”, Šumkoski was later removed from the position of chairperson, and part of his group “putčisti” was expelled from the party.

The pro-Russian orientation of “Rodina Makedonija” is reflected in the statute, where the goal of the members, among other things, is to build close relations with the Slavic countries and Russia, based on the affiliation of the common Slavic culture and civilization. However, it seems that the party’s main activities are more propaganda, directed against the West and against the Prespa Agreement, than to promote their positive program goals.

At the first public gatherings, the initiators of “Homeland” spread disinformation and fear of the disappearance of Macedonians and declared that “we do not want to enter your alliances EU and NATO and whatever else, where Macedonians and the Macedonian state no longer exist.” Instead of the “oppressor” the EU, and the “fascist” NATO (which was “on its deathbed” and a “dysfunctional alliance with an expired term”), in the first public appearances, the initiators of “Rodina” advocated a “multipolar world” and promoted the idea of ​​Eurasia from Vladivostok to Lisbon.

Negative anti-NATO propaganda continued with the condemnation of the “special Assembly” that voted for NATO, when NATO being declared as a fascist occupier and all 114 lawmakers who voted to ratify NATO membership as “traitors”. The party mobilized party founders with hate speech against Western “terrorist hordes that kill both alive and dead under the auspices of the satanic American state,” denouncing lawmakers who voted to ratify the NATO protocol as “servants in the service of the demon”. “Homeland” condemned the NATO overflight as an “act of aggression” and spread conspiracy theories about NATO, 5G internet, and “Great Albania”.

“Homeland” tried to use the Macedonian-Bulgarian dispute to denigrate the EU as a fascist creation, spreading disinformation that “capitulation of the Macedonian people” was required and agitating that therefore, we should give up the request to join the EU.

With its anti-Western and quasi-anti-fascist discourse against the hypocritical and anti-national policies of NATO and the EU, “vampire Europe” and “vampire fascism”, “Rodina Makedonija” sought to incite intolerance and hatred not only of the West but also of pro-Western political opponents. Not only to the two biggest “traitorous parties”, but also to the “traitorous freaks“, the “domestic traitors in power”, “Northern puppets”, ” etc.

Immediately after its formal founding, the party spread conspiracy theories against Washington as Rome’s successor, claiming that “Our Macedonian people have been under attack from Rome and its successors and servants for 2,000 years.” Instead of NATO, which “divides the Slavs”, “Rodina Makedonija” propagated an economic and military alliance with “brotherly Russia” and the “Eurasian Economic Union”, and its founder claimed in an interview with Russian media that “the first Eurasian in this region is Alexander the Macedonian.”

 

“Rodina” against vaccination – disinformation about the pandemic, hatred of the government and Bill Gates

Even before the declaration of the pandemic, “Rodina Makedonija” supported “parents who began to choose not to vaccinate their children”, spreading disinformation about vaccines.

Following the announcement of the Covid-19 pandemic, the party dmisinformed in its posts about an “artificially created virus – the equivalent of a flu variation”, and an “artificially created pandemic and fabricated panic” as part of the “ugly totalitarian plan” of the “globalists” and “satanized world organizations and denigrated organizations and institutions.”

“Homeland” denies the pandemic (“it’s not a pandemic, but a slightly more dangerous variation of the coronavirus”) and the high mortality rate, disinforming that a seasonal virus state of emergency (a seasonal fabricated virus, a virus that according to all world health statistics is in the rank of seasonal flu).

“Rodina Makedonija” also spread a frightening conspiracy theory and disinformation about the connection to the virus, 5G technology and the Bill Gates chip:

COVID 19 also follows 5G antennas and technology, as an important element of the future vaccine mentioned by FILIPČE and in which they need an RF identification chip, a chip for which BILL GATES has a patent bearing the number WO2020 060606 A1.

Although vaccination against the coronavirus is a planetary process, the party declared it “unscientific vaccination of the Macedonian people, which is aroused exclusively by low passions for financial personal interests and short-term political needs of the treacherous junta!”

Ignoring its own claims that the pandemic was created, that “there is no virus” and that it will prosecute the “artificially fabricated crisis over the virus”, “Homeland” shared on Twitter the text “Russia in August with an approved vaccine against Covid -19! Is Gates’ plan to make people zombies failing?”

After the “anti-vaxxer” disinformation, “Homeland” practically promoted the Russian vaccine, denigrating the western vaccines of the “global fascists”, which aimed at “making people zombies”:

Will humanity get a chance to escape the RNA-changing vaccines of the global fascists in order to transform people into a reluctant herd of cows that cannot resist eternal slavery and violence?

“Rodina Makedonija” activists were not only the organizers of anti-covid measures but also keynote speakers and major sources of disinformation about the coronavirus linkage with 5G technology, as well as the pandemic and vaccination. Officially the party’s biggest donor in 2021, and part of the party’s presidency, is the anti-vaxxer Gordana Godzo, who spread frightening disinformation about vaccines and spoke against the then Minister of Health, as well as QАnon conspiracy theories (Godzo’s profile picture on her Twitter profile is a large red letter Q with small suns). Her “Homeland” party provided her with a video platform for further dissemination of disinformation and conspiracy theories about the pandemic and vaccination. In a video interview, Godzo and her guest from Serbia’s “sovereign diaspora” spread disinformation that “the virus was invented” by organized criminals – “bank thieves, pharmacy mafia, the Satanists of the world.” Through the same video, the party practically spread a conspiracy theory against Bill Gates as “the greatest monster” of today’s fascism, denigrating him as “a sick man of a necrophiliac character who enjoys reducing the population and killing people.”

“Rodina Makedonija” also attacked the “criminal government created from outside“, accusing it of being “ideally suited to the agendas of depopulation with high mortality rates, transgender sex education and demacedoniation with the savage Northerners”.

 

“Rodina Makedonija” in a disinformation campaign against the population census

“Rodina Makedonija” used the previous census, as well as the census in 2021, as an occasion to spread misinformation about the number of ethnic Albanians in Macedonia, publishing various data to the public. For example, the disinformation that in Macedonia “Albanians are currently 14%, with the falsified census under the dictatorship of the US Embassy”, was obviously in the context of the intention to create panic for the deletion of Macedonians, for future federalization and even division of the country as in the time of the German-Italian fascist occupation. In another announcement, “Rodina Makedonija” claimed that “the real number we know is approximate, around 10 and a maximum of 15%”, and in the third announcement it claimed that “Rodina Makedonija has verified and very accurate information – that in the Republic of Macedonia live 16.3 -17.7% of citizens of Albanian ethnic origin “, calling on “the entire Macedonian nation not to recognize the results of the census if it includes more than 18% of citizens of Albanian ethnic origin.”

The 2021 census was presented as “another attempt to erase the Macedonian people”, and the party agitated with the slogans “Say NO to #ethnocide”, and no for participating in a rigged, directed and illegitimate census. The pro-Russian “Rodina” propagated that the people could accept “Only a census organized by the UN, and monitored by Russia and China“, that “we will not allow another genocide against us”, and that the Macedonian people will not recognize “the results of the census organized by the occupier”. The “Geopolitical Project Census 2021” was delegitimized as “led by the western strategic gravediggers of the Republic of Macedonia and their regional servants“, as a census to preserve power, as a census for irredentist purposes – Great Albania, as a classic place for ETHNOCIDE of the Macedonian people (“VAMPIRISM towards Macedonia and the Macedonian people”), as” the last act of destruction of Macedonia through a fake census“. “Rodina” agitated that “Macedonians must boycott this census en masse and unitedly, as we unitedly and fraternally boycotted the referendum”, called not to participate in the falsification, ethnocide and relativization of an entire nation – the Macedonian and claimed that THERE WILL BE NO CENSUS!

“Rodina Makedonija” together with other organizations and parties joined the campaign full of Disinformation “I WILL NOT OPEN A DOOR”, which results in a reduced number of ethnic Macedonians in the census results. Then, “Rodina Makedonija” did not recognize the results of the FALSIFIED CENSUS and spread the conspiracy theory that the 2021 census is a “geopolitically criminal Census by Western powers and the Albanian order in the Government, as well as the Macedonian fifth column, where the Macedonian is from the home country in a criminal mafia geopolitical operation.” Rodina Makedonija also disinformed and intimidated that the purpose of the census was to “increase the number of Albanians at the expense of Macedonians”, which was essentially a “continuation of long-standing Western policy”.

Such disinformation and conspiracy theories about “Great Albania” and the “erasure of the Macedonian from his ethnic territory” are nothing new, but the continuation of dark geostrategic conspiracy theories by accustoming “Great Albania” during the political crisis in 2015- 2017, as well as during the “Prespa Agreement” and NATO membership, tried to provoke interethnic intolerance and hatred.

 

“Rodina” in local elections: a campaign of disinformation and incitement to hatred

“Rodina Makedonija” participated for the first time in the local elections in 2021 with its candidates for mayor in Berovo, Centar and the City of Skopje, and with its councilor lists in 9 municipalities and the City of Skopje.

At the forefront of the campaign in Skopje were not local topics, but attempts to mobilize citizens who do not want to be vaccinated or are against co-measures. “Rodina” called on “free Macedonia” to “stop the rampage of the vaccine lobby and the business interests of the pharmaceutical mafia, as well as the fascist agenda of the neoliberal global elite.”

“Rodina” demanded the abolition of covid-fascist measures, and in his video address, the mayoral candidate spoke of “more vampiric fascism”, “covid fascism”, Skopje as a large concentration camp, where citizens who refuse the vaccine are facing movement restrictions as in a “Jewish Warsaw ghetto“. The holder of the council list for “Skopje” advocated for “Skopje with Macedonians, without Afghans, without Kosovarization“.

In the local elections of 2021, “Rodina” was one of the parties that openly spread homophobia and transphobia. Previously, Rodina advocated for the support of the traditional Macedonian Family and protection from the manipulative programs of the West to dismantle it, propagandized against LGBT and pedophile ideology, and opposed the “introduction of these twisted, perverted “values” imposed by the Europeans“. During the local election campaign, Rodina’s candidates promised to protect children from “psychopathic NGOs”, banning “Mila Carovska’s monstrous sensitive sex education”:

Children will be protected from transgender freaks and inhuman sex education that promotes parent1 and parent2, rather than father and mother.

The incumbent mayor of Skopje, as a candidate, was denigrated as “a person who works directly for the globalist projects, Climate change, sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the WHO projects for resetting the economy from the covid-pandemic”. Nevertheless, “Rodina” called on its voters in the second round to vote for her, and against the government, which was the smaller and bigger evil.

Although “Rodina Makedonija” achieved modest results (the candidate for mayor of Skopje had only 0.76% of the votes, and the other candidates even less), no conclusion can be drawn from the total failure of the “Russian influence” in the local elections 2021, which was visibly achieved through other political actors, which is a topic for further analysis.

 

 

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