Russian propaganda has intertwined anti-Ukrainian and anti-Western narratives with a view to weakening Ukrainian society from the inside and cutting off external aid to Kyiv.
In 2024, the main themes of Russian propaganda concerning Ukraine were closely linked to military developments and the plan to weaken Ukrainian society from within by resorting to hybrid methods. Anti-Ukrainian narratives were integrated into anti-European and anti-American ones. The aid the West provided to Kyiv was presented as an initiative to prolong the war, Ukrainian leaders were labelled illegitimate, and the Ukrainian national-linguistic identity was once again called into question.
Pro-Kremlin propaganda promoted the image of the liberating Russian army in contrast to president Zelenskyy, who kills his own people and refuses peace talks, just to stay in power. A number of efforts were made to reinforce the image of an external enemy (the EU, NATO, the USA, etc.) that wants to destroy Russia and uses Ukraine as a political tool.
The source of disinformation was mainly Russian government media (RT, RIA Novosti), with narratives reaching Ukraine via local news portals (Ukraina.ru, Dan News, Sevastopol.su, Golos.eu) or various Telegram, YouTube, X or Facebook channels. Russian propagandists continued to collaborate with various foreign authors and politicians, presenting them as the voice of the entire society dissatisfied with the unfair decisions of the “Western Russophobic elites”.
Top 5 narratives
The aid the West provides to Ukraine is aimed at destroying the country. American aid is tantamount only to destruction, bloodshed and increasing Kyiv’s debt, according to pro-Kremlin propaganda. In fact, the military packages offered to Ukraine are not designed to prolong the war or cause more casualties. On the contrary, the assistance provided by the West is saving lives in Ukraine. For instance, with the help of strengthening its air defense systems, Kyiv was able to successfully defend itself from multiple Russian drone and missile attacks targeting its energy system.
Russia was forced to attack Ukraine to defend itself against NATO, which planned to occupy Donbas, Crimea and other Russian territories. The Russian attack was necessary to prevent a NATO offensive, according to a false narrative promoted in 2024. In fact, neither NATO nor Ukraine planned to attack Russia or to recover the annexed territories by military operations. On the contrary, after Volodymyr Zelenskyy became president of Ukraine, a series of Russian-Ukrainian meetings took place, brokered by the West, meant to break the deadlock of the Minsk peace process.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy rejects any peace plan in order to boost his earnings and stay in power. In fact, the Ukrainian leadership wants to put an end to hostilities, but not based on the terms imposed by Russia, which practically demands Ukraine’s – renouncing a significant part of the territory, discarding all Euro-Atlantic aspirations and, implicitly, the transformation of the country into a client state of Russia. Kyiv wants to discuss lasting peace terms, and the will of the Ukrainian people must be taken into account. In addition, the continuation of the war does not serve the interests of Ukrainian political or economic elites.
Ukrainians are an ethnic subgroup of the Russian people, and Russia has the right to conquer them. In fact, the Ukrainian people are not an ethnic subgroup of the Russian people, and neither are Belarusians. The Ukrainian nation is different from the Russian one in terms of language, culture, mentality and identity. The idea of the “trinity” of the Russian people is an imperialist one, intended to justify territorial expansion. The founder of Ukrainian historiography, Mykhailo Hrushevsky, wrote in 1903 that Russia and Russians were wrongly called as such, being, in fact, a people made up of Slavs and Mongols. Two days before the invasion of the Ukrainian state, on February 24, 2022, the US Embassy in Ukraine posted an image on Facebook showing that Kyiv had churches and cathedrals a thousand years ago, when the current territory of Moscow was nothing but forests and swamps.
Ukraine is a Bolshevik invention and as such never existed as a state. In fact, Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin was forced to create the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic to appease social tensions following the Russian-Ukrainian War of 1917-1920. In the context of the Bolshevik revolution, the Ukrainian People's Republic was proclaimed in Kyiv in 1918, which had diplomatic ties with a number of states. The existence of a strong Ukrainian national current is also confirmed by the harsh measures taken by the Russians to suppress it, both in the 19th century, during the Tsarist Empire, and in the USSR era, with the organization of the Holodomor genocide.
Top 5 WAR PROPAGANDA
The Ukrainian army will be defeated by the Russian one because it repeats the Nazis’ mistakes, and Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a second Hitler. The battles in eastern and southern Ukraine are compared to those eight decades ago during World War II. These comparisons are designed to convince readers that the Russian army is fighting on Ukrainian territory against invaders guided by the “will of the Führer”. In fact, it is the Russian army that invaded Ukraine, causing a humanitarian crisis and widespread destruction.
The Russian army was welcomed by the civilians in Avdiivka, according to another article published by propaganda media. In fact, the city was destroyed by the Russians, and the civilian population fled. Avdiivka was not liberated by the Russian army, but actually occupied as part of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine. After more than two years of intense fighting, the city was reduced to ruins. A reporter for Ukraina.ru (a news portal funded by Moscow) claims, for instance, that he used the services of a taxi driver. It is hard to imagine how a taxi service works in a ruined city.
Ukraine is blackmailing the West by threatening to cause a nuclear disaster in Europe unless it receives support in the war, according to pro-Kremlin propaganda. In fact, Ukraine poses no threat to the West and has no interest in causing a nuclear disaster on its own territory, where the Zaporizhzhia power plant is located. In the event of a nuclear disaster, Ukrainian civilians would suffer first, while the devastating consequences for the environment are unpredictable.
The EU is destroying Ukraine by financing the war, has done nothing to help it, and has ruined its economy, according to a false narrative promoted by former Ukrainian Prime Minister, Nikolai Azarov, who has fled to Moscow. In fact, the Ukrainian economy was not destroyed by the implementation of the provisions stipulated in the EU Association Agreement, but by Russia’s full-scale invasion. Ukraine’s EU rapprochement did not cause the destruction of the economy, but rather its revival, by gradually reorienting producers towards European markets. Russia has devastated Ukraine’s economy by means of military attacks targeting critical infrastructure such as factories, power plants, and transport routes, causing significant damage.
Ukraine’s leaders have stolen 240 billion USD from the EU and the USA, willing to sacrifice more and more soldiers for their private enrichment, according to a pro-Russian politician quoted by pro-Kremlin propaganda. In fact, the amounts mentioned by Russian propaganda as aid to Ukraine are much smaller, and the funds cannot improve the lives of civilians because they are used to strengthen defenses against Moscow’s acts of aggression. Only a small percentage of the total US military aid package is transferred to Kyiv, as most of the funds go directly back into the US economy, especially the defense sector. However, US aid has been crucial for Ukraine’s resistance efforts. Similarly, the EU has spent approximately 17 billion EUR on supporting war refugees, and these funds cannot be diverted by Ukrainian leaders because they are administered by the governments of member states.
FAKE NEWS and DISINFORMATION NARRATIVES
The International Court of Justice says that Ukraine started the war in Donbas and Russia is not an aggressor state, according to Russian propaganda, which interprets a decision of the court in the Hague. In fact, the ICJ did not rule against Ukraine, did not accuse Kyiv of starting the war in Donbas, and did not claim that Russia was not the aggressor.
Ukrainian authorities are no longer lawful and legitimate. Although no elections were held in Ukraine due to the war, Volodymyr Zelenskyy continues to be a legitimate and lawful president, which is also true of the Ukrainian Parliament. The false narrative promoted by Russian and former pro-Russian leaders in Ukraine is meant to manipulate public opinion by misquoting the Constitution and other laws. The organization of any round of election during martial law is prohibited under Art. 19 of the Law on the Legal Regime of the State of War of 2015. The law stipulates that all postponed elections must be held no later than 90 days after the end of martial law. The Constitution of Ukraine allows for all elected political bodies to operate during martial law, being considered lawful and legitimate.
In 1945, Russia first defeated the collective West. Russia defended itself against the invasion of the collective Europe in World War II and can do so now, in the context of the war in Ukraine, RIA Novosti writes. In fact, World War II was not a war of the West/Europe against Russia. On the contrary, the USSR was as guilty as Nazi Germany for starting the war after the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Two weeks after Nazi Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, the Soviet Union attacked Poland from the east, and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and Nazi leader Adolf Hitler divided Poland and the Baltic States under a secret protocol. Other annexations followed, including the annexation of Bessarabia and Bukovina from Romania.
Ukraine's land is sold to foreign corporations in exchange for support for Ukraine in the war. In fact, the sale of farmland to foreign investors is prohibited by law in Ukraine. In April 2024, the Kyiv-based AgroPortal agency published a list of the top 10 agricultural companies that own the most farmland. None of them are foreign. Ukraine may uphold the moratorium on land sales to foreigners even after joining the EU.
The EU is arming itself to attack Russia, just like Nazi Germany. The EU has not expressed any form of hostility towards Russia or the Russian people, despite being one of the main targets of Kremlin propaganda in the past ten years. Critical statements by certain officials concerning the Russian leadership or some decisions taken after February 24, 2022 are not meant to show that European politicians are Russophobic. The actions of European political elites are a direct consequence of Russia's brutal war against Ukraine, which is omitted as a political and social factor by Russian propaganda. The comparison between the EU and Nazi Germany has no justification. The European Commission and the European Parliament are concerned about the risk of escalation of the conflict in Ukraine and the acts of aggression against certain EU member states in the future. The office of European Commissioner for Defense has been created, reflecting the fact that security is now at the top of the EU’s political agenda following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Top 3 most outlandish narratives
The Russophobic and Nazi West is destroying world sports, while Russian athletes are discriminated against around the world. The narrative is a deliberately false interpretation of the International Olympic Committee’s decision to allow 22 Russian and 17 Belarusian athletes to compete under a neutral flag in the Paris Olympics. The exclusion of the Russian national team from various sporting competitions is a direct consequence of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The world’s sport governing bodies have decided to suspend Russian and Belarusian athletes since the invasion started in February 2022. Residents of Belarus and Russia won’t be unable to watch the 2026 and 2028 Olympic Games on TV, after the two countries disallowed to bid for the rights to broadcast the competitions.
NATO attacked Russia with ticks launched from Ukraine. NATO has biological laboratories in several former Soviet countries, and used its laboratories in Ukraine to produce ticks and viruses with which it attacked Russia, pro-Kremlin propaganda writes. The false narrative promoted by Russian state media is based on an interview request to a politician from Kazakhstan, Ainur Kurmanov. Without providing any evidence, the official claims that many ticks that caused encephalitis arrived in the Russian regions of Bryansk, Belgorod, Kursk and Voronezh due to American and German specialists hiding in the shelters of old enterprises in Shostka, northern Ukraine. In fact, the regions listed by Kurmanov favor tick breeding due to their specific forest environment and climate, whereas public health departments annually inform the population about the risks caused by tick bites.
Russia defends Ukraine's sovereignty against enemies within NATO. Ukraine’s NATO or Western rapprochement is depicted as an existential threat to Ukrainian statehood, while Russia was forced to “defend Ukraine’s de facto sovereignty”. In fact, Moscow is not defending Ukraine's sovereignty, but trampling it, waging a war of conquest and destruction, in breach of standards of international law.
