The West is escalating the situation in Ukraine, the main Kremlin propagandists keep on claiming, while Russia has amassed troops and equipment near its border with that country. The narratives are aimed at making the West responsible for the situation in Ukraine and justifying the Russian aggression.
NEWS: “The week has been tense. The West is escalating the situation and is speculating on the alleged invasion of Ukraine by Russia. The dialogue on security guarantees is hampered by information challenges. Vladimir Putin and Emmanuel Macron have discussed the situation around Ukraine and Russia's dialogue with the West….Putin has reminded Biden and Macron how things got to the current crisis situation. The West has found a convenient topic - Crimea. But all that happened before Crimea, Russia’s initiatives, what they got in response – everything was ignored, leading to what we see today.
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Macron seems to believe that Russia is violating the sovereignty of Georgia, Moldova, and the main claim is Crimea. Vladimir Putin: “It's nothing that at all. Have we conducted any operations in Crimea or elsewhere? In a normal country with normal leadership? Not. We've never done anything like this. It never crossed our minds. Why did the Western states support the coup? From that moment, for us, the leadership in Ukraine, the source of the leadership, was the coup d'etat, but not the desire of the people. Power was taken by force, by force of arms, with bloodshed. Under these conditions, we had to defend the people living in the Crimea. How else? Why were we put in this situation”?
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President Macron found a curious reason to explain why Kiev is not complying with the Minsk Protocol. Emmanuel Macron: “President Zelensky is the head of a state on the border of which there are currently 125,000 Russian soldiers. This worries him. The second reason is that when the Minsk agreements were signed, there was no such intense Russian military presence at its borders”. Macron forgot that 7 years ago, during the signing of the Minsk agreements, there was a real war underway in Ukraine between the troops on the Maidan and the fighters in the Donbass […] “
NARRATIVES: 1. The West is escalating the situation in Ukraine. 2. The current crisis is the result of the West's refusal to discuss security issues. 3. In 2014, a coup was staged in Ukraine, and the leadership was taken over by an illegitimate regime. 4. Russia did not annex the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, it had to save the population there. 5. Kiev does not comply with the Minsk Agreements.
CONTEXT: The situation AT Ukraine's eastern border has recently worsened as a result of the concentration of Russian troops and weapons in the area. It is the tensest phase of Russia's hybrid war since 2014, after the annexation of Crimea and the launch of armed action in the Ukrainian region of Donbass. The Kremlin claims that it will not attack Ukraine, but Western officials say the danger of a Russian invasion is very high. European leaders are working hard to ease the tension.
The annexation of Crimea and the Donbass war were also accompanied by a well-crafted and aggressive anti-Ukrainian propaganda, present on all Russian television channels for eight years and intensifying in times of crisis such as the current one. One of the Kremlin's main propagandists is Vladimir Soloviov, the host of a daily talk show on the state television station Rossia 1, “Evening with Vladimir Soloviov”, and the show “Moscow. Kremlin. Putin”, which is broadcast on Sunday and reports for an hour on what the Russian president has done during the week. Rossia 1 broadcasts throughout the Russian Federation, but also in the post-Soviet space, including the Republic of Moldova. The TV station was banned in Ukraine in 2014 as a measure to combat Russian propaganda. Other Russian TV stations have been banned in Ukraine and the Baltic States for the same reason. Since 2014, most Russian stations have covered events in Ukraine in a tendentious manner, with the Kremlin's media policy being very aggressive towards Kiev. Russia's equidistant and democratic press is harassed by the Kremlin power. Many media outlets have been closed, others have been declared “foreign agents’, and several Russian journalists have had to emigrate from the Russian Federation.
PURPOSE: The narratives are intended to accuse the West of the situation in Ukraine and to justify the Russian aggression in that country.
WHY THE NARRATIVES ARE FALSE: The West, especially the United States, has expressed concern about the possibility and even imminence of a new Russian invasion of Ukraine, and has reported intelligence obtained by the secret services about the amassing of significant forces at the Russian-Ukrainian border. The situation is being escalated by Russia, not by the West, with a new demonstration of force. The Kremlin is trying to reap more benefits from the negotiations with the West through military pressure. The West has not threatened Russia's territorial integrity, on the contrary, the latter, either directly or through its Donbass intermediaries, has occupied part of the Ukrainian territory. This Russian aggression has led the EU and the US to massively support Ukraine, financially and militarily.
The war in Ukraine began in 2014, with the annexation of Crimea by Russia, after the coming to power of pro-Western forces in Kiev. Russia responded aggressively to the Ukrainian Maidan, the large-scale protests in Kiev and other Ukrainian cities over the country's European path after Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych, pressured by the Kremlin, refused to sign the Association Agreement with the European Union. The 2013-2014 protests were popular, not a coup. Against the backdrop of the protests at the time, President Yanukovych fled the country. He was fired by Parliament for failing to carry out his constitutional responsibilities. Ukraine's leadership was elected following free and democratic elections, held after the protests - the presidential elections in May 2014 and the legislative elections in October 2014.
Vladimir Putin has illegally annexed the Ukrainian Peninsula of Crimea, threatening Ukraine's territorial integrity. The international community has condemned this annexation, describing it as an act of aggression against Ukraine and a violation of international law.
The claim that the Kiev authorities have violated the Minsk Agreements is also false. On the contrary, during the 8 years of war, Kiev has repeatedly accused Moscow of violating the ceasefire agreement. Also, Moscow continued to support the armed formations in Donbass, contrary to art. 10 of the document. At the same time, the Russian Federation, by proposing the recognition of the separatist republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in the Donbass region, violates not only this document, but also international law, and the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. The recent vote in the State Duma for the recognition of the PRL and the PRD is a new step for the Kremlin towards taking control of these Ukrainian territories.
