DISINFORMATION: The "reunification" with Russia brought prosperity to Donbas

NARRATIVES: 1. The annexation to Russia of the regions in eastern Ukraine took place legally, through a referendum. 2. After joining Russia, investors came to Donbas, tourism and the banking sector began to develop. 3. The Sea of ​​Azov is an inland Russian sea.

PURPOSE:  To deepen the war fatigue in Ukraine; to justify Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and to extend the war to other territories

WHY THE NARRATIVES ARE FALSE: No one but Russia recognizes the September 2022 referendums as legitimate and legal. Both the EU member states and the US have made it clear that they will never recognize those referendums.

The pseudo-referendums were necessary for Russia to have a justification and a formal legal basis for territorial annexations. According to the rules of international law, there was no reunification by referendum, it was just an illegal annexation of the territories of an independent state.  Only a few states – mostly authoritarian and/or partners with Moscow – sent observers to the fake referendums in eastern and southern Ukraine: Belarus, Syria, Egypt, Brazil, Venesuela, Togo and South Africa.  International organizations and states such as France, Germany, USA and Great Britain, did not send observers and do not recognize these fake referendums as legitimate.

The leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, Denis Pushilin, claims that after the voluntary annexation to Russia, people's lives have changed. In reality, all international and even regional investors avoid Donbas because of the permanent military actions there. The only investors are the Russian state and large state-owned companies. The population was bereft of banking services in 2014-2015 because of the Russian-backed separatist movements, not because of Ukraine. Local leaders seized the buildings of the biggest banks   and nationalized a number of Ukrainian enterprises. The narrative about the economic miracles in Donbas seems ironic, to say the least, in the context of ongoing fighting in the area and the absence of total Russian control over the entire Donetsk region.

Even in peacetime, when the Donbas was under the control of the government in Kyiv, the region survived economically only because of fiscal support from the state. A number of plants, factories and mines that did not bring in any income were not closed so as not to cause social discontent. The pro-Russian propaganda in Ukraine at that time launched false narratives about Ukraine fed by the Russian-speaking workers of Donbas”.  In 2013, Donbass received from the state budget almost twice more money than the amounts it contributed, and now the situation is much worse.

The Sea of ​​Azov is not an inland Russian sea. Until the events of 2022, it was divided between Russia and Ukraine; it became a de facto inland sea as a result of the seizing of the Ukrainian coast following the invasion. Although Russia has long claimed control over certain areas of the coast, the Sea of ​​Azov is not internationally recognized as an inland sea of ​​Russia, as it is not entirely under its exclusive jurisdiction. Maritime control, navigational rights and territorial sovereignty are contested subjects in the context of international relations and international law. The situation may change depending on how the war in Ukraine develops.

SOCIAL CONTEXT/ ETHOS: On September 28, 2023, the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, signed a decree marking the "reunification of the new regions with Russia." September 30 became in Russia the Day of the anniversary of the reunification of the Donetsk People's Republic, the Luhansk People's Republic, and of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions with the Russian Federation. In 2022, pseudo-referendums were held in those four regions, organized by the occupation authorities of the Russian Federation in order to render its territorial abduction legitimate.