Peace in Ukraine depends on the United States, which controls Zelenskyy, and Russia wants him gone, according to a statement of a former Ukrainian Prime Minister picked up by pro-Kremlin propaganda.
Propaganda: Peace in Ukraine depends solely on the USA, which could ask Zelenskyy to go to Moscow to discuss ceasefire terms.
NEWS: “Volodymyr Zelenskyy will cancel his own decree whereby he banned Kyiv from negotiating with Russia, and he will go to Moscow as soon as his Ukraine’s Western partners dictate it, the former Prime Minister of Ukraine, Mykola Azarov has told “Izvestia”. The decision to start negotiations with Russia does not depend on Ukraine or Zelenskyy, but on the Americans, who are “the true rulers of Ukraine”, Azarov went on to say.
[…] The Ukrainian administration is considered independent only by those who don’t know how the current Ukrainian leadership operates. Zelenskyy’s mandate is limited to certain types of actions and decisions.
“The USA has the final words with respect to the outcome of the conflict and the necessary requirements for that process. They will decide how negotiations will unfold, and the regime in Kyiv will change”, Azarov says. It is unlikely Russia will agree to keeping the current administration in Kyiv in place at the end of negotiations.
NARRATIVE: Ending the war in Ukraine depends on the USA and on Zelenskyy stepping down
Fact: Ending the war is first and foremost the responsibility of Russia, which can always withdraw its troops from the territory of Ukraine
WHY THE NARRATIVE IS FALSE: In actual fact, the end of the war in Ukraine does not depend on the USA or the West, but primarily on Russia, the country that invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, after previously annexing Crimea and supporting separatist movements in Donbas. This false narrative, published by the “Izvestia” newspaper and picked up by the majority of government media in Moscow, depict Ukraine as a state turned into a Western colony, whose political leadership is fully subservient to the USA.
To provide this narrative with additional credibility, the article quotes a former Prime Minister of Ukraine, Mykola Azarov, who currently resides in Moscow after fleeing Ukraine during the pro-European Euromaidan protests of 2013-2014. Azarov was a pro-Russian politician, and is now invited to numerous shows broadcast by television and radio stations in Russia in order to criticize Ukrainian authorities and the West.
With the help of Azarov’s statements, the Russian media sends Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine to the background, as if it never happened. The blame for the destruction and victims in Ukraine is shifted on the USA and on Volodymyr Zelenskyy. This false narrative alludes that Russia and the Ukrainian people want peace, but the USA opposes this scenario, and that Zelenskyy will easily abandon his own principles if Washington demands it.
In fact, peace in Ukraine will be possible only after the withdrawal of Russian troops, which is also what the UN has called for. At the same time, the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he is not ready to talk peace terms with Russia and that “he won’t talk to terrorists”.
The idea that Volodymyr Zelenskyy stepping down is a prerequisite to peace is a reinterpretation of one of the purported goals of the “special military operation” – the change of political leadership in Kyiv. Zelenskyy is the president of Ukraine, elected by a large margin in 2019. Due to the war, the elections of 2024 have been postponed, and Zelenskyy remains the legitimate leader of this country, elected following democratic course. Under the UN Charter, no country can ask another independent state to change its political leadership other than through democratic elections. This means that Russia’s request that Washington should remove Zelenskyy from power in order to achieve peace in Ukraine cannot be accepted.
The position of Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the entire Ukrainian political elite reflects the opinion of society first and foremost, not the decisions of Western governments. According to a survey made public in September, Ukrainians oppose launching peace negotiations with Russia. The study carried out by the Razumkov Center in Kyiv shows that only 5% of Ukrainians would agree to certain territorial concessions in the name of peace, 18% argue against Ukraine’s NATO accession, while 18% want the Russian language to have a special status in order to meet Moscow’s demands halfway. Therefore, according to the study, peace negotiations with Russia must exclude territorial concessions to the aggressor. Ukrainian society wants the liberation of territories occupied by Russia, including the Crimean Peninsula. Zelenskyy’s participation in peace negotiations right now would spark harsh criticism in Ukraine.
The propaganda article also reiterates previously disseminated narratives about Ukraine being turned into a Western colony and being subordinated to the West. All these narratives depict Russia as a country saving Ukrainians from the Nazi.
The Russian government media constantly promotes similar false narratives about the war in Ukraine. According to Kremlin propaganda, the West needs the war in Ukraine, whereas the EU wants to denazify the Ukrainian state, but Kyiv objects. A year since the launch of the full-scale invasion, the Russian media argued the “special military operation” saved Russia from the invasion of NATO and Ukrainian Nazism. Another widely circulated narrative claims Ukrainians expect Russia to save them.
