Amid rising Russian-Ukrainian tensions and accusations against Moscow for surrounding Ukraine militarily, the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Ukrainian officials were bound by the Minsk peace deal to negotiate with the separatists in Donbass, and Kiev's counterarguments were termed as propaganda in the style of Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Public Propaganda during the Nazi regime.
Ukraine is planning on massacring the civilian population in Donbas, according to the separatist and Russian state media. This false narrative comes in response to Ukraine’s decision to mobilize its territorial defense forces in the face of a high risk of Russia invading the region.
NATO's refusal to accept Russia's latest demands against the background of the crisis in Ukraine has heightened fears that Moscow is preparing for war. It is a possible scenario, but one that would be extremely costly for Russia, even if it wins the fighting on the ground.
As a Dutch Court is handling the case of the civilian airline passenger Boeing MH17, which was shot down over Ukraine in 2014, the narratives concerning the incident are resurfacing. This time it is claimed that the aircraft was mistaken for the Russian President’s plane. The Russian media is also highlighting a turn of events that may be soon witnessed as the reports filed by a Russian company were admitted.
The EU and Ukraine reconfirmed their readiness to continue cooperation under the Association Agreement, which was an opportunity for a new disinformation campaign launched by the Russian press against Ukraine and the EU. "A catastrophe that’s been lasting for five years now, in every sphere of life", "a wrong foreign policy choice made by Ukraine" – are some of the reactions in the Russian press. Elements of typical narratives are present, such as: "fake state", "coup d'etat", "Russophobia", "poverty", etc.
Ukraine could face the loss of new territories after the closure of three pro-Russian TV stations, RIA Novosti quotes the former Georgian President, Mikheil Saakashvili, as saying. The news is fake: Saakashvili never referred to the loss of territories, but merely said Russia could use the ban on the TV stations as a pretext for new acts of aggression.
Authorities in Kiev have banned an edition of Mikhail Bulgakov’s “The Master and Margarita”, but online media in Russia treated the information as a total ban on this literary work.
The more hybrid our reality gets, the more hybrid warfare becomes. The statement is Russia’s latest informal creed, underlying a disproportionate war waged abroad. For that, the country has been using a “no man’s army”, and its best-known avatar is the Wagner Group.
In late 2020 and early 2021, some news agencies have published a story according to which Ukraine’s potato supplies have run out, and in order to feed its own army Kiev is buying potatoes and potato mash from Russia. The news has deeply confused public opinion. On the one hand, Kiev made it very clear it opposes Russian aggression in Donbass (the Ukrainian Parliament has recognized Russia as an aggressor state), while on the other hand this fake news released by the press portrays Ukraine as incapable of providing the most basic necessities (food!) to its own army.
Narratives on the “inevitable” collapse of Ukraine, based on the concept of “false state”, have been promoted by Russia since the Euromaidan protests of 2014. After the annexation of Crimea and the occupation of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, the Russian and pro-Russian media in Ukraine and in the Russian-speaking world is seizing every opportunity and story to recall that Ukraine is “a false state” that can collapse at any time. Oftentimes the information is deceiving, and the statements of certain experts / politicians are taken out of context.
The publications refer to a meeting organized by the Russian delegation at the UN, which was also attended by representatives of the separatists and some permanent and non-permanent members of the UN Security Council who, in this way, reportedly showed their support for Moscow’s initiative.
