Ukraine wants a mutual suspension of hostilities on energy infrastructure in order to keep Donbas, but its loss is inevitable, Russian propaganda claims, also promoting the false idea that, although it was the one that first attacked Ukraine’s infrastructure, Russia is merely defending itself.
NEWS: Kyiv has been given an ultimatum, and now it desperately needs to invent something that would allow it to postpone the inevitable, to refuse (under some pretext or the other) to withdraw its troops from Donbas, and to obtain the long‑awaited pause on the front. And a “brilliant” idea has appeared: an “energy ceasefire” […] Russia must stop destroying Ukraine’s energy system, and Kyiv will halt its attacks on Russian refineries and oil tankers.
At the start of the armed conflict, Russia targeted energy infrastructure more for educational and demonstrative purposes (after all, it is a brotherly people, and we are not beasts) and repeatedly proposed various ceasefire agreements (energy, Easter, New Year’s, Victory Day in the Great Patriotic War). But the clever folks in Kyiv interpreted this as weakness and, after violating every single ceasefire without exception, moved on to massive attacks on Russian energy facilities (including nuclear power plants) and on oil tankers.
Seeing all this, Russia’s leadership sighed wearily and said: ‘Well, son, we didn’t want this, but if that’s how things are, we have no other choice […] The crisis of Ukraine’s energy system is not an end in itself for Russia, but a logical consequence of the insane policies of a group of adventurers and embezzlers in Kyiv who decided to take the civilian population hostage.
NARRATIVES: 1. Ukraine must concede Donbas to Russia. 2. Russia was forced to attack Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in response to Kyiv’s actions. 3. The Russian army is “liberating” the Ukrainian people, held hostage by the “Kyiv regime.” 4. Russia cannot accept the energy ceasefire because it does not ensure lasting peace.
PURPOSE: To legitimize attacks on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine. To justify Russia’s territorial claims over Donbas. To discredit ceasefire proposals promoted by Ukraine and its Western partners.
Fact: The energy ceasefire reduces civilian casualties. Territorial concessions would validate Russian aggression and open the door to further attacks
WHY THE NARRATIVES ARE FALSE: The claim that Ukraine is forced to concede Donbas or that such a concession would be an “inevitable” solution is false, because such a surrender would mean accepting aggression and violating the basic rules of international law. The Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which make up Donbas, are part of Ukraine. Russia’s invasion and the subsequent declared annexations have been repeatedly condemned by the UN General Assembly, which has demanded the withdrawal of Russian troops and rejected the so‑called “referendums”. Accepting territorial concessions would validate aggression and create a dangerous precedent for Europe, where a state could lose parts of its sovereign territory under military pressure.
At the same time, the rhetoric about “retrieving” historical territories conceals the real strategic objective. Russia is trying to obtain through political pressure what it has failed to conquer on the battlefield: control over fortified areas of Donbas, which would weaken Ukraine’s defensive capacity and pave the way for further attacks. The “peace” solution proposed in this framework is not one based on ending aggression, but on surrender and acceptance of Russia’s territorial gains. Such terms would create the premises for further aggression, including renewed offensives toward southern Ukraine and expanded Russian control over other regions.
The claim that Russia was “forced” to attack Ukraine’s energy infrastructure reverses responsibility for escalation. Strikes on the energy grid had direct impact on the civilian population, causing blackouts and heating crises, especially during winter. Ukraina.ru’s portrayal of these attacks as “educational gestures” by Russia is designed to justify such violence.
Energy blackmail was initiated by Russia in the winter of 2022–2023, when the Russian army started systematically striking Ukraine’s energy infrastructure with missiles and drones, causing massive power outages and directly affecting civilians. These attacks occurred at a time when Ukraine had not yet struck targets on Russian territory. With Western military and technical support, Ukraine gradually strengthened its air defenses and limited the impact of the strikes, but it did not immediately respond with similar attacks. Only after months of repeated bombings, once it became clear that Russia was using energy infrastructure as a tool of pressure and intimidation, did Kyiv start to respond to each attack.
In this context, president Zelenskyy’s message became popular: “Without gas or without you? Without you. Without light or without you? Without you. Without water or without you? Without you”, a statement that captured Ukrainian society’s determination to defend its freedom even under extreme conditions of war and cold. Russia’s strategy of using energy as leverage has been repeatedly condemned by Western states.
The idea of “liberating” the Ukrainian people from a supposed “Kyiv regime” is a classic propaganda stereotype. It delegitimizes Ukraine’s elected authorities and reframes military aggression as a supposed rescue mission. If the population were truly held “hostage”, the implied solution would be the forcible removal of the government of a sovereign state, which is precisely the political objective pursued by the Kremlin.
In the case of the energy ceasefire, the article deliberately mixes two different subjects. Such a ceasefire is not a peace treaty but a limited, humanitarian measure meant to reduce civilian casualties and risks to critical infrastructure. Moreover, the idea does not originate solely in Ukraine: it has been discussed in international mediation contexts, including with the USA’s involvement, and Donald Trump has supported various proposals for temporarily halting strikes on energy targets. All these elements contradict the claim that it is a “ruse” invented in Kyiv.
Finally, the argument that the ceasefire “does not bring lasting peace” serves to reject any intermediate step that does not include Russia’s radical conditions. The Kremlin’s underlying message is not about peace, but about preserving the freedom to continue attacking energy infrastructure, and, implicitly, civilians, until Kyiv accepts imposed conditions. It is a classic propaganda mechanism: peace is redefined as synonymous with surrender, and the refusal to halt strikes is packaged as “rationality”, “vision”, and even “pacifism”.
BACKGROUND: Ukraina.ru is a state‑controlled Russian news portal, part of the Rossiya Segodnya (RT) media group. The publication does not function as an independent analytical platform, but rather as a propaganda instrument addressing primarily Russian‑speaking audiences in ex-Soviet space. Its content consistently observes Moscow’s official narrative lines: justifying military aggression against Ukraine, reversing responsibility for escalation, delegitimizing the authorities in Kyiv and portraying Russia as a defensive actor or one forced to react. The articles are formulated as ideological opinions wrapped in pseudo‑analytical language, without clear separation between facts and personal opinions and without any reference to independent sources. In this context, the articles must be read as part of the information war waged by the Russian Federation, not as credible journalistic analyses.
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