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The existence of Ukraine on the "historical territories of Russia" will be a permanent reason for war and killing of Ukrainians, says former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. He is one of the most virulent voices of Russian propaganda and has threatened nuclear war in the past.
Propaganda: Ukrainians will have to accept the Russian occupation in order to have a peaceful life
NEWS: “Ukraine's existence endangers the lives of Ukrainians. I have in mind not only the current state, the Banderovist political regime. I mean any other Ukraine. Why? The existence of an independent state on Russia’s historical territories will always be a reason for the resumption of military actions,” [Dmitri Medvedev] wrote on his Telegram channel.
According to Medvedev, there is "a one hundred percent probability" for a thaw in the conflict "regardless of the security papers" signed by Ukraine and the Western states. The politician assumes that a new war will be possible "in five or even ten years".
"Given a choice between life and a permanent war that will bring death, most Ukrainians (except a minority of foolish nationalists) will choose life. They will understand that life in a common state, which they don't love now, is better than death," Medvedev stressed […].
The Kremlin has repeatedly stated that the goals of the special operation will be achieved. The Russian president has previously said that Moscow has never refused to negotiate with Ukraine, but this is prevented by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's October 2022 decree on the impossibility of concluding a truce as long as Vladimir Putin is Russia's president.
NARRATIVE: The existence of independent Ukraine endangers the lives of Ukrainians.
Dmitry Medvedev admits that Russia is waging an imperial war of conquest
CONTEXT: Dmitry Medvedev is the first high-ranking Russian official to indirectly admit that all the pretexts invoked by Russia to justify the invasion of Ukraine (the existence of a so-called danger to its security, a response to a NATO/Western aggression, denazification etc.) are false and that the war is an imperial one whose goal is the conquest of Ukraine and its assimilation within the Russian state. Dmitry Medvedev, former president and former prime minister of Russia, currently vice-chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, is seen as one of Vladimir Putin's most loyal aides. Medvedev was chosen by Putin to be president in his place at a time when the Kremlin leader could not, due to the law at the time, run for a third consecutive term. Medvedev feigned reformism and a willingness to reach out to the West while he was president, but any trace of that openness has long since disappeared: since the launch of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Dmitri Medvedev has become one of Russia’s most virulent propagandists and has repeatedly threatened, since 2022, that it will resort to its nuclear arsenal; the most recent such threat was made in January 2024. Medvedev's diatribes have targeted the territorial integrity and even the existence of Ukraine as a state before. He has proposed, for example, the division of the country between the neighboring states.
Reality: Ukrainians give their lives on the front line for their state and consider Russia a historical enemy
Medvedev's threat and the Russian media's accounts of it have as their starting point the false narrative about the non-existence of a distinct Ukrainian people and the lack of legitimacy of a Ukrainian state, which was allegedly founded on Russian "historical territories". At the same time, they are trying to induce the idea that the majority of Ukrainians would not, in fact, want to resist Russia and that only a minority of "nationalists"/right-wing extremists are waging the war.
In fact, Ukrainians are giving their lives on the front for their state and consider Russia a historical enemy. Last fall, 73% of Ukrainians said they were against any territorial concessions to Russia . Also, 94% of Ukrainians believe that Vladimir Putin is a 21st century Adolf Hitler . Russia is considered by 90% of Ukrainians to be a historical enemy. According to sociological data, there is no question of any territorial surrender or desire to join the Russia led by Putin.
The Russian press also disinforms when dwelling on the idea of Ukraine as a territory historically belonging to the Russian Federation. In fact, the past territorial membership of some regions or cities has no importance for the current international legal system and does not justify Russia's attacks. In 1991, over 93% of Ukrainians voted in a national referendum, in the presence of international observers, for the independence of Ukraine . The decision was supported in all Ukrainian regions, including Crimea and Donbas. In 1997, Russia and Ukraine signed a basic treaty, according to which Moscow recognizes the independence and supports the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Ukrainian state. Russia not only recognized Ukraine's borders, which included the Crimean peninsula and the Odesa, Donetsk and Luhansk regions, but committed itself, under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or the political independence of Ukraine.
From this perspective, it is not Ukraine as a state that represents a security risk and a hotbed of future conflicts, but Russia's defiance of the norms of international law and the Kremlin's desire to restore the USSR and occupy territories belonging to neighboring states.
The purpose of this false narrative is to justify the actions of the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine in the eyes of the domestic public opinion, but also to discourage Ukrainian resistance to Moscow's invasion by creating a false dilemma: surrender or die.
During the 23 months of war on the territory of Ukraine, Veridica has debunked a series of similar false narratives. According to the Russian propaganda, Odesa and southern Ukraine belong to Russia. Russian media also wrote that Ukrainians were waiting to be rescued by Russia , while the armed conflict in Ukraine is a civil war because Russians and Ukrainians are one people. Russian politicians and state media in Moscow have also tried to convince the public opinion that Ukraine did not exist before the emergence of the USSR.
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