Verdict: The news disseminated by Georgia and the World is FAKE NEWS.

Summary: The information disseminated by Georgia and the World, according to which the National Intelligence of the United States speaks of the uselessness of sanctions, is disinformation, an attempt to inadequately present the National Intelligence Report

and yet another attempt to underline the idea of the “invincibility” of the Russian Federation.

In fact, both the report published by the Director of the National Intelligence of the United States, Daniel R. Coats, and the Worldwide Threat Assessment 2018 document claim the opposite and state that Russia, through its disinformation propaganda, tries to weaken the pressure of the West.

Analysis Georgia and the World, a Georgian media outlet, published an article

entitled “According to the National Intelligence of the United States, Anti-Russian Sanctions are Useless.” As the story claimed, the report of the Director of the National Intelligence, Daniel R. Coats, mentioned that Russia has managed to cope with the imposed sanctions.

The existence and freedom of operation of the National Intelligence of the United States in order to strengthen the country’s national security is guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States and the 1947 National Security Act. Each aspect of the operation of the National Intelligence of the United States, including the issue of accountability, is regulated by the 1981 Intelligence Community Legal Reference Book according to which the Central Intelligence Agency is accountable not only to certain branches of the executive government but also to the Intelligence Committee

at the United States Senate.

Daniel R. Coats is the Director of the National Intelligence of the United States. He presents an annual report to the Intelligence Committee at the United States Senate. On 13 February 2018, he presented the 2018 Worldwide Threat Assessment document at a meeting of a joint session

of the Intelligence and Defence Committees.

Most likely, this hearing became the source of inspiration and the conclusions presented by Georgia and the World. However, the disseminated article is fake because neither the general hearing of the document nor the text of the report

includes a paragraph according to which “Russia has managed to cope with the imposed sanctions” and, even more so, there is nothing that would point to the uselessness of the sanctions.

The main issues that Daniel R. Coats raised were Russian disinformation and the attempt to increase the Kremlin’s influence through disseminating fake news. The report mentions that Russia, by using state-controlled media, tries to incite anti-American and anti-European sentiments and weaken the existing pressure from Western sanctions. Georgia and the World presented the information in the report within a context opposite to its true intent.

Inciting anti-Western sentiments and portraying Russia as an “invincible” country is not new for Georgia and the World. The following disinformation articles also belong to the list of publications from Georgia and the World: “Pentagon Acknowledged that it Will Not be Able to Cope with the Strategic Forces of Russia and China,” “Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Adopted a Resolution that Might Lift Sanctions on Russia” and others.