In this article, we will discuss 10 fakes of Russian propaganda, which, unfortunately, are repeated even by some Western opinion leaders.
Fake number 1. In 2014, there was a coup d'état in Ukraine and today's government is anti-Russian
The Kremlin uses typical statements about a coup d'état to justify its own aggression.In 2014, Ukrainians staged peaceful protests when then-President Viktor Yanukovych, under pressure from Russia, refused to sign the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU.
The protests became truly large-scale after the brutal beating of protesters by law enforcement officers on December 1, 2013.
In fact, the Revolution of Dignity does not have any signs of a coup d'état, because the main goal of a coup d'état is the seizure of power by conspirators in their own interests.The Revolution of Dignity began with actions in support of the signing of the Association Agreement with the EU and later grew into mass protests aimed at protecting democratic values. It was not aimed at getting power and profit.
Other signs of a coup d'état are unconstitutionality and violent nature, when weapons are the main means of achieving a goal.All the events of the Revolution of Dignity took place in a constitutional manner, and the protesters began to use means of self-defense only after the escalation of violent actions by the authorities, which involved armed security forces to disperse unarmed protesters.
In February 2014, Russia launched a covert military operation. Russia annexed the Ukrainian Crimea and organized protests in the eastern part of Ukraine with the help of its army. The involvement of the regular Russian army and heavy casualties in the summer of 2014 and winter of 2015 forced then-president Poroshenko to sign the Minsk agreements, which reduced the intensity of the bloodshed. Implementation of the Minsk agreements was impossible due to the fact that Russia did not fulfill their very first point - a complete ceasefire.
In parallel, Russia created several more fakes about Euromaidan.
First, the Kremlin media repeatedly wrote that in 2014 the coup d'état in Ukraine was carried out by supporters of the "Nazi" Stepan Bandera. In fact, during the Euromaidan, the vast majority of protesters were peaceful citizens. Members of radical groups numbered no more than a thousand people out of eight million.
Second, the Russian media wrote that the Maidan was organized by other countries in order to eliminate the pro-Russian ruling class in Ukraine and replace it with pro-Western puppets, and that it was organized to destabilize Russia. Among the probable organizers of the Maidan are the EU, NATO and the USA. Such statements are baseless. Ukrainian authorities are independently responsible for domestic and foreign policy. Yes, Ukraine really cooperates with the West in the military sphere.Since 2014, cooperation in critical areas has intensified. However, this cooperation is aimed only at increasing the defense capability of Ukraine, and not at the detriment of any country.
Another Russian fake: Maidan provoked the secession of Donetsk and Luhansk and Crimea. In fact, only Russian aggression led to the war in the eastern part of Ukraine and the occupation of Crimea. In 2014, during a rally about secession from Ukraine in Donetsk, when militants raised the Russian flag, Russian citizens took leading positions.In 2014, the "Prime Minister" of the "DPR" Oleksandr Borodai stated that if it were not for Putin, his policy decisions and actions, there would be no "Russian Donbass".
Russia's direct intervention in the war has been repeatedly proven.
The regular Russian army participated in battles against the Armed Forces in the summer of 2014, and in the winter of 2015, and all the time afterwards, and was also responsible for the downing of flight MH-17. The fact of the presence of the Russian Federation was recognized by the OSCE, thousands of Russian soldiers took part in hostilities in the east of Ukraine and they were awarded medals for it.
Residents of occupied Donbas were issued Russian passports and given the right to vote in Russian elections.
With regard to Crimea, the decision to hold a "voluntary" referendum was made by the Verkhovna Rada of the Republic of Crimea in the parliament building captured by the then unrecognized Russian military and under machine guns.
The "referendum" was held with numerous structural violations, in particular, its conduct did not correspond to the Ukrainian legislation of the time: such a decision should have been made at the legislative level, and only then brought to the local level.
Fake number 2. Ukraine bombed the residents of Donbas
"Why were you silent for eight years when children were killed in Donbass?" — this phrase and its variations are one of the most popular arguments for supporters of Russia today. This phrase is also the quintessence of all Russian propaganda about Ukraine.It accuses Kyiv of starting the aggression, justifies any atrocities against our country and undermines the moral right to criticize the actions of the Kremlin. Propagandists, bot networks, and sincere Russophiles use this argument so actively that already in the first week of the full-scale invasion, any Ukrainian knew what "eight years" meant. And the phrase itself became one of the markers of identification "us vs. them".
We will remind that in 2014, Putin was so confident in the "militias" that on April 17 he publicly listed the regions that he said "were not part of Ukraine" and gave them the name "Novorosiia".
It was about the entire eastern and southern part of our country, and for eight years the main task of Russian propaganda was to prove that it did not violate borders and was not fighting in Donbas. They said that Ukraine is protecting its territorial integrity from internal "separatists".
After the occupation of part of Donbas, Ukraine did not want to shoot and did not try to return Donetsk and Luhansk by force: since 2015, there has been no large-scale offensive on the front. However, Russia torpedoed any settlement and diplomatic process.For example, in 2014, Russia refused to participate in consultations under the Budapest Memorandum, a document in which she promised to respect Ukraine's borders and not use force against it.
Russia agreed to only one meeting of leaders of the Normandy format and refused a meeting of foreign ministers.The Kremlin also consistently refused a bilateral meeting between the presidents of Russia and Ukraine, either because of "external management" or because they did not want to discuss the "Donbas issue" specifically.
Russia has also consistently failed to comply with the Minsk agreements: not only in terms of the ceasefire, but also the withdrawal of weapons or the admission of the mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Immediately after Russia's recognition of the "LPR" and "DPR" on the eve of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Putin addressed the Russians and said:
"I decided to conduct a special military operation. Its purpose is to protect people who have been subject to abuse and genocide by the Kyiv regime for 8 years."
At the same time, similar messages began to appear on the network and said that Ukraine allegedly had started bombing Donbas 8 years ago.Similar statements were voiced by Russian stars: Mykola Baskov, Tina Kandelaki, Oleh Gazmanov and many others, justifying the invasion of Ukraine.
In fact, since 2014, Ukraine has been helping not only those who fled the hostilities, but also those who remained in the occupied territories. Thus, for children from separate districts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions and Crimea, there was a special procedure for admission to Ukrainian universities thanks to the Donbas-Ukraine and Crimea-Ukraine educational centers, and pensioners were able to receive Ukrainian pensions.
Ukraine created several logistics centers on the demarcation line, where people from the occupied territories could receive administrative services, buy Ukrainian goods, etc.
"Suddenly" on August 4, 2022, the Russian propaganda agency "RIA Novosti" announced that the center of Donetsk was shelled for the first time in 8 years, thereby debunking their own myth that Ukraine had been bombing Donetsk all these years.
It's necessary to note that according to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, from April 2014 to July 2021, the total number of dead as a result of hostilities in Donbas is 13,200-13,400 people — at least 3,391 civilians, about 4,200 Ukrainian military personnel, and about 5,800 members of armed formations.
The responsibility for numerous victims of the civilian population lies with the Russian Federation and its controlled groups "DPR" and "LPR".
Numerous facts and investigations prove that Russia transferred military equipment and weapons to the militants of the so-called "DPR" and "LPR". Here is a list of some investigations and databases of the presence of the Russian contingent and weapons on the territory of Ukraine:
- "Armed conflict in Ukraine: military support of illegal armed formations "DPR" and "LPR" by the Russian Federation";
- "Battle of Ilovaisk. Mapping of the Russian military presence in the east of Ukraine, August - September 2014";
- Database and video graphics of the latest weapons of the Russian Armed Forces in Donbas.
In November 2021, the independent organization Conflict Armament Research published an examination of military equipment that was seized from the armed forces of the self-proclaimed "people's republics" in eastern Ukraine. Of the nearly five thousand units of ammunition documented by the group between 2018 and 2021, most were manufactured at factories in the Russian Federation.
On the eve of Russia's recognition of the so-called "DPR" and "LPR" on February 21, 2022, militants purposefully began shelling residential areas and the civilian population of the occupied territories with the aim of provocation and escalation of the situation. This is evidenced by the intercepted talks of the militants by the Security Service of Ukraine.
Fake number 3. NATO expansion provoked Russia to attack Ukraine
On August 22, The Guardian published Philip Short's article "What exactly does Putin want from Ukraine after six months of bloody and terrible war?".
The Russian media immediately began to spread their own interpretation of the publication. The media claimed that the article allegedly said that Russia was provoked by "a mindless desire to expand NATO to the east and a promise to accept Ukraine into its ranks". And now they say, NATO will no longer be able to stop Russia.
In fact, the British article mentions the NATO summit in 2008, which discussed the need for Ukraine to become a full member of the alliance as one of the reasons for Putin's "toxic" attitude towards Ukraine.However, he calls NATO's potential expansion only "the tip of the iceberg" and he does not claim that there is no chance of stopping the Russian car.
The journalist analyzes how Russia perceived the potential possibility of Ukraine joining NATO and recalls that the current head of the CIA, Bill Burns, who was then the US ambassador to Moscow, wrote in a secret telegram to the White House:"Ukraine's entry into NATO is the brightest of all red lines for the Russian elite. In my more than two-and-a-half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knaves in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin's fiercest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who sees Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russia's interests… Today's Russia will
Short writes that American administrations ignored Burns' warning, and Putin responded: in 2014 he annexed Crimea and started a war in Donbas.
The Russian mass media also noted that the Secretary General of the Alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, "said" that NATO had been "preparing for war with Russia" for 8 years.
In fact, Stoltenberg said nothing either about the eight-year "preparation for war" with Russia, or about NATO's "plans" to "attack" Russia. The NATO Secretary General reflected on the foundations of European security, which the Kremlin undermined in 2014 by beginning the occupation of Ukrainian Crimea and seizing parts of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts. The statement was not only taken out of context, but they also supplemented his quote with conspiratorial comments, adding to the material the emotionally colored verb "spill the
Separately, during the Madrid summit, Stoltenberg once again refuted the Russian narrative about the Alliance's intentions to "attack" Russia. The NATO Secretary General stressed that the Alliance will continue financial and military support to Ukraine, increasing its ability to repel Russian aggression. However, Stoltenberg also noted that NATO is not a party to the conflict in Russia's war against Ukraine.
Also, during the Moscow conference on international security, Putin accused the USA and the "collective West" of wanting hegemony in the world, and called Ukraine a tool for this.According to Putin, in order to destroy this hegemony, Russia was forced to attack Ukraine.
In fact, Russia attacked Ukraine for several reasons. As Putin stated, the Russians sincerely believe that Ukrainians are not a separate people.
So they want to erase Ukraine from the face of the earth as a country of the world.
Putin's quote: "You see, until the 11th, 12th, 13th centuries, we did not have any difference in language. And only as a result of colonization and the share of Ukrainians who lived in the territory that was under the authority of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, only somewhere, it seems, in the 16th century the first language differences appeared".
Putin also wants to restore the historic Russian Empire and divert the attention of Russians from the internal problems of their own country, such as corruption or poverty, as well as increase his popular support.
On the other hand, Russia understands that the "special operation" is not going according to plan, so Russia tries to publicly position that it is war with the USA and NATO, which are obviously not as painful to lose as the "Khokhlam", which the Russians planned to defeat in 3- 4 days.
Fake number 4. Putin only wanted neutrality and denazification of Ukraine
The lie that Russia is not going to "change the regime" in Ukraine has been repeatedly refuted by the Russians themselves: for example, Putin himself and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergei Lavrov.
However, not only Ukraine could become a victim of the Russian Federation, because the Kremlin was seriously preparing for a military conflict with Japan.
The American newspaper "Newsweek" obtained a letter dated March 17, written by a person who cooperates with the FSB, addressed to Russian human rights defender and journalist Volodymyr Osechkin.
An FSB agent under the pseudonym "Wind of Change" wrote: "Confidence that Russia and Japan will enter the stage of acute confrontation and even war was high. Why was Ukraine chosen for the war in the end - the scenario has not changed much...".
The newspaper writes that propagandists should have come into play before the conflict with Japan began.Their role was to inflame the hatred of the Russians against the Japanese, creating the image of the latter as "Nazis" and "fascists". This tactic was eventually used against the Ukrainians.
Russia even began to prepare society for war with Japan.In August 2021, the FSB declassified information that during World War II, Japanese special services were supposed to torture citizens of the USSR. At first, this news was hardly noticeable in the information space, but in a matter of days, propaganda began to spread this topic. In autumn, they forgot about the Japanese.
Moscow suddenly changed its mind to go to war with Japan and stopped at Ukraine. The reasons for the change in positions are unknown.
"Wind of Change" named the exact positions of Russian helicopters that were waiting for a signal to attack Japan. According to him, "war was inevitable for Russia due to the maniacal desire for war on the part of the leadership."
Information that Putin was planning an invasion not only of Ukraine is spreading not for the first time. However, many sources and experts believed that the dictator planned to occupy the Baltic states.
Mykhailo Podoliak, adviser to the head of the President's Office, said that the Russians want to "denazify" six more countries.In his opinion, Putin can attack Poland, the Baltic states and Kazakhstan as part of a global "military special operation for... demilitarization and denazification."
Fake number 5. Russia's victory means faster peace for Ukraine
In August, UN Secretary General António Guterres and President of the Republic of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Lviv on a working visit and met with the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyi.
For the first time since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the possibility of ending the Ukrainian-Russian war through diplomatic means and holding direct negotiations between the Ukrainian and Russian presidents was discussed at this meeting.
According to Erdoğan, for this it is worth returning to negotiations based on the parameters formed at the March meeting in Istanbul. In addition, Erdogan offered the President of Ukraine to hold a meeting with Putin in Turkey.
Volodymyr Zelenskyi said that he does not yet see a "diplomatic window" for negotiations with Russia. According to the President, negotiations are possible only after Russia withdraws its troops from the territory of Ukraine.
The fact that Ukraine is not ready to make concessions to Russia was also confirmed by the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Oleksii Danilov, who wrote on Twitter that any territorial compromise with the Kremlin is a war postponed for the future, so Ukraine plans to leave to its borders in 1991.
In fact, the fastest way to peace is to supply much more weapons to Ukraine and facilitate the unequivocal military defeat of Russia. If Ukraine is forced to surrender, it will not only lead to a genocide with millions dead or deprived of their own identity.Russia will also use the devastated Ukrainian land as a springboard to attack other countries – just as it uses Crimea and other currently occupied territories to attack the rest of Ukraine.
Russia perceives any concessions as weakness and an invitation to escalation. However, it backs down when faced with stiff resistance. For example, when the Russian troops met resolute resistance, they fled from Kyiv oblast, Kharkiv oblast and Kherson oblast, as well as from the Zmiinyi Island.
Fake number 6. The Russian language was forbidden in Ukraine
The Russian language is not forbidden in Ukraine, many people speak Russian even today, although after the full-scale invasion, many residents of Ukraine began to switch to Ukrainian in order not to communicate in the aggressor's language.
The President of Ukraine believes that the issue of the Russian language in Ukraine can be resolved through mutual respect for the languages of all neighboring countries, which should also be documented.
"I would generally like not to use this constant argument about what language is. In our country, everyone speaks the way they want and in the language they want. More than 100 nationalities live here.That's why I said: only mirror respect for history, languages, cultural values by all neighbors. This I accept. I am sure that our people will accept it if they want to. Because all this, one way or another, people, voters will make a choice," he noted.
The President emphasized that every next day of the war calls into question the use of the Russian language in Ukraine in general.
"People themselves will not want to perceive and speak it, watch movies, etc. Especially when they try to instill love for the language through blood, as happened in the case of Ukraine," he said.
According to the President, if any national minority wishes to open an educational or other institution, to publish in its own language, mirror steps should be taken with regard to the Ukrainian language.
Fake number 7. Ukraine is divided into Russian-speaking and Ukrainian-speaking people
After the adoption of the law establishing the status of the Ukrainian language as the only state language, the Russian propaganda media reacted to it with a portion of disinformation and fakes.The information was presented in the usual style for propagandist publications, with the use of derogatory constructions - "in the language", "in Nezalezhna", "in Ukraine". Among the popular sayings are also "law on linguistic fascism", "total Ukrainianization" and others.
The newspaper "Komsomolskaia Pravda" has published a text that collects various manipulative statements that were spread even at the stage of discussion of the draft law.The key thesis of the publication is that Russian-speaking people in Ukraine face persecution and criminal liability.
The same newspaper writes that they will also fine officials who did not pass the exam on knowledge of the Ukrainian language."Fines ranging from 3.4 thousand to 11.9 thousand hryvnias are provided for officials with unsatisfactory results."
The author of the same article writes that the law oppresses the rights of Russian-speaking people and prohibits using Russian in public places.
Also, part of the Russian mass media continues to use the myth that the Russian language is the language of the majority in Ukraine.
Of course, more Russian-speaking citizens did live in the east and south of Ukraine, and support for pro-Russian parties was higher here until 2022.However, despite Russian propaganda, there is no discrimination based on nationality or language in Ukraine. In addition, the Russification of Ukraine is the result of a very brutal policy pursued by the USSR authorities.
American sociolinguist, expert on the language policy of the post-socialist countries of Eastern Europe, Kurt Woolgeiser, expressed interesting thoughts about our language situation. The researcher considers Ukraine to be a "unique combination of different language situations": "The position of the Ukrainian language is impressive from the point of view that, at first glance, it is the language of the ethnic majority in Ukraine, at least the majority of Ukrainians recognize it as their native language. However, when it comes to the daily use of the Ukrainian language, you understand that in some regions of Ukraine it is actually the language of an ethnic minority, or a language of "reduced cultural value".The linguistic assimilation of the local population led to this, as a result of which the Ukrainian language was practically displaced in these territories."
According to Kurt Woolgeiser, Ukraine combines the Irish and Belarusian language development scenarios with the situation in Catalonia.In this country the local language was subjected to discrimination, but recently it is actively reviving.This is facilitated by the support of the authorities and the Catalans themselves, who have never neglected their native language.In Woolheiser's opinion, the situation of Ukraine in the west and center is somewhat similar to Catalonia, while the south and east are more reminiscent of Belarus and Ireland, which requires a particularly thoughtful and effective language policy from the authorities.
He conducted focus group surveys with representatives of the younger generation of Ukrainians in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa and Dnipro. Their results showed that groups of young people who have been Ukrainian-speaking since childhood are now being supplemented by educated youth who used to speak Russian and now make a choice in favor of Ukrainian-language
Fake number 8. Russia is backed into a corner, so it " is trying to keep face"
The best rebuttal to this myth comes from Timothy Snyder, who explains that if Putin loses, Putin will simply change reality TV and convince the Russians that Russia has won.While Ukrainians are fighting for their existence, Putin is fighting for "great Russia", and many Russian soldiers do not understand at all what they are fighting for and they have come to our country to rob, rape and commit other crimes in Ukraine. Many Russian soldiers are drug addicts, drunkards, sick, mentally disabled, people with previous convictions.
In fact, Putin does not have enough "cannon fodder" and military equipment to defeat Ukraine and occupy at least a third of it and keep the occupied territories.Instead, the Ukrainian army is one of the best armies in the world, armed with modern weapons and equipped with the latest technologies.
Fake number 9. Russia is a superpower that cannot lose a war
At one time, Barack Obama described Russia as a regional leader.This assessment was not very well received in Russia, since many Russians considered, and still consider, their country "great", that is, unique.The exchange of views between the US and Russia was interesting, but it led to important changes in Russia's place in the world.
Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine has brought this debate to the fore as countries weigh options
Instead, Russia continues to position itself as an invincible country, despite the fact that it is actually controlled by the former State Security Committee of the USSR, it is extremely good at blackmailing, deceiving and corrupting politicians. Russia is also good at deepening social divisions and fomenting conflict and violence. However, the country cannot offer anything positive.
Russia has a lot of weapons - but their numbers have significantly reducrd after nine months of full-scale war with Ukraine. However, its economy has proved vulnerable to sanctions and boycotts.
Russia positioned itself as a "moral beacon" in opposition to the West. However, after mass murders in Buch, Irpin, Mariupol, Izium, Lyman and other Ukrainian cities, Russia became a butcher in the eyes of the whole world.
In nine months of full-scale invasion, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, with the full support of the Ukrainian people, have demonstrated that Ukraine will ultimately win the war started by Russia and restore peace to Europe.
Subsequently, the realization that Russia's "Z" actually meant zero, obtained by Russia as a result of an unprovoked war against Ukraine, led to significant Western support for Ukraine in those critical autumn months.
Fake number 10. It is unknown what kind of victory Ukraine could achieve
The victory of Ukraine means the restoration of the territorial integrity of the country within its internationally recognized borders, as well as the creation of conditions for safe post-war reconstruction. It means that Russian missiles or artillery will not kill Ukrainians or destroy Ukrainian assets.
The Minister of Defense of Ukraine Oleksii Reznikov noted that Ukraine has three goals:
- to return the borders of the country to those recognized in 1991, together with Crimea and Donbas;
- to make Russia to pay reparations;
- to send to the tribunal those who committed war crimes.
"This is a war for the survival not only of Ukraine, but also of the free world.If Putin wins this war, it will become an example for other tyrannical governments, such as in Iran, North Korea and China.Such a victory would allow China to believe that it can launch its own successful war against Taiwan or some other territories.For the West, winning the war means preventing future wars in Ukraine and in Western countries," said Taras Berezovets, a former TV presenter and political analyst turned military press officer.
"In general, by the spring of next year 2023, we can already fully expect the celebration of Victory Day," says Serhii Bykov, head of the Inpolit analytical center.
After that, Ukraine will become one of the most powerful nations and turn into an important component of the European community.
Author: Anton Malynovskyi
