The detention of a truck carrying weapons at the Moldovan-Romanian customs post in Leușeni-Albița quickly turned into an intense disinformation campaign against the governments in Chișinău and Kyiv. Moreover, the incident bears all the hallmarks of a false flag operation, i.e., a provocation deliberately organized to create political and diplomatic problems. On the same day the truck was detained, a number of controversial political actors across the political spectrum, from leftwing populists Renato Usatîi and Victoria Furtună to right wingers like Vlad Filat and Dragoș Galbur, became active in Chișinău, spreading outright false information or at least erroneous speculation about the detained weapons and ammunition.
The internal narrative was that the government in Chișinău is corrupt and involved in arms and drug smuggling, or at least incompetent and powerless to stop this illegal trafficking. The external narrative focused on the corruption of the Ukrainian government, which was allegedly smuggling weapons received as Western aid. The conclusion: Ukraine should no longer be supported, either by Moldova or by its Western partners. The theme was quickly spread by the Pravda network and the Russian media. In this analysis, we present a brief OSINT examination of publicly distributed images, the chronology of events and statements, the actors involved, and the narratives promoted.
Click to read full analysis: Border ammo incident – a false flag operation used by Russian propaganda
Video here: https://youtu.be/eoLGbwWBKPE