RIA Novosti, in an article titled “France was horrified by Zelensky’s reaction to the forecast of the UN Secretary General on Ukraine,” writes :
“The decision of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to attend the EU summit in Brussels showed that Kyiv ignored the warning of UN Secretary General António Guterres,” French politician and former MEP Florian Filippo tweeted.
The day before, the Secretary General said that the chances of further escalation and bloodshed continue to grow. According to him, the world can slide into a larger war.
“Yesterday Guterres warned of the risk of a global war in 2023! A few hours later, Zelensky is invited to Brussels – the best way to add fuel to the fire and go to total war!” the French politician shared his opinion.
This short note is interesting because almost everything in it is false. Florian Filippo on Twitter did not criticize Zelensky's reaction, which he did not mention at all, but Ursula von der Leyen's decision to invite him to the EU summit in Brussels:
“Yesterday, the UN Secretary General warned about the “risk of a global war in 2023”!
A few hours later, Ursula [von der Leyen] invites Zelensky to Brussels – the best way to add fuel to the fire and go to total war!”
Guterres did not give any forecasts for Ukraine, he only called the ongoing Russian aggression one of the factors bringing the world closer to a global catastrophe:
“A month ago we moved the calendar to the new year. But just a few days ago another clock struck, the so-called doomsday clock.
This symbolic clock was created 76 years ago by atomic scientists, including Albert Einstein. Year after year, experts measure humanity's proximity to midnight—in other words, to self-destruction.
In 2023, they examined the state of the world — with a Russian invasion of Ukraine, an accelerating climate catastrophe, growing nuclear threats that undermine global norms and institutions.
And they came to a definite conclusion. The doomsday clock now shows 90 seconds to midnight, which means 90 seconds to total global catastrophe. <…>
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is causing untold suffering to the Ukrainian people and has profound global implications. The prospects for peace continue to dwindle. The likelihood of further escalation and bloodshed continues to grow.”
Florian Filippo, whose tweet RIA is trying to pass off as the “opinion of France,” is a former vice-chairman of the National Front, who was elected from this party to the European Parliament in 2012. Later, he quarreled with Marine Le Pen, left the party and founded his own, of the same national-populist and Eurosceptic persuasion, called the Patriots, but she never achieved success in any elections. This is not the first time Filippo has criticized EU support for Ukraine; in December, he even called the EU a "mafia" for allegedly uncontrolled spending of multibillion-dollar aid to Ukraine.
How the invitation of the head of state-candidate for EU accession to the Brussels summit threatens the world, neither Filippo nor RIA tried to explain.