Former French minister calls out Zelensky's propaganda campaign

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Former French minister Segolene Royal condemned Thursday the propaganda campaign carried out by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky aimed at preventing peace talks.

"Zelensky's fear-mongering propaganda has two goals," said Royal on BFM television, "The first goal is to motivate his army. When the Ukrainian president talks about torturing soldiers, it should affect the Ukrainian servicemen, mobilize them. It also serves as an obstacle to the peace process."

The former minister further added that propaganda allegations by Kiev are uncorroborated in such a way that "Zelensky talked about the shelling of the maternity hospital, but he could not prove it.”

Royal argued that uncorroborated information and propaganda campaigns must become outlawed. She explained that "It is necessary that the UN and the journalistic community establish a ban on the instrumentalization of fear.”

Royal has twice served in the French government, most recently as the minister of ecology. She also served as France's Arctic and Antarctic ambassador. In 2007, she ran in the presidential elections where she garnered more than 46% of the vote in the second round but was defeated by Nicolas Sarkozy.

Not the first to make such accusations

On August 23, France 2, a broadcaster, apologized after incorrectly referring to a broken chimney pipe on a building near the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant (ZNPP) as a Russian rocket.
 
The apology came via their Twitter account and stated that "this news item was produced from images from APTN [Associated Press Television News], an agency to which France Televisions [owner of France 2] is subscribed… By mistake, one of them was misinterpreted. It shows a damaged chimney, not a missile, as stated in the commentary. We apologize to our viewers for this unfortunate error." 

The news item was aired on August 10 on the evening news at 8pm local time (18:00 GMT). 

The image that raised confusion showed two chimney pipes on the rooftop of one of the buildings that surround the ZNPP. The actual nuclear power plant may be made out in the photograph's backdrop.

Furthermore, a press release, issued on August 4, saw Amnesty International accusing the authorities in Kiev of endangering civilians by setting up army bases in residential areas. The press release saw the organization subjected to a slew of attacks, with many parties saying it was promoting the Russian narrative against Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky attacked the agency, accusing it of seeking to shift "the responsibility from the aggressor to the victim."

According to the organization, Kiev has been operating weapons out of bases established in residential areas in the presence of civilians, which breaches rule 23 of Article 58(b) of Additional Protocol I that separates military objectives and civilian populations. 

Read more: Macron not to let Russia win Ukraine war, backs IAEA mission to ZNPP