Russia must occupy the whole of Ukraine in order to permanently eliminate the military threat posed by NATO and to completely Russify the Ukrainian population, says pro-Kremlin propaganda.
NEWS: The disappearance of Ukraine, i.e., its annexation by the Russian Federation, will lead to the complete disappearance of an aggressive NATO base against Russia, where the Ukrainian Armed Forces can continue to prepare and train for the continuation of the war. It is unlikely that Western European countries will host Ukrainian armed units "in exile" on their territory [...]
It should be noted that it is impossible to create a puppet state controlled by Russia on the territorial remains of Ukraine that will not be included in the Russian Federation. Simply put, such a state will never be recognized in the West, even partially, and therefore will not be recognized by its own citizens, which makes it unstable—unable to withstand Maidans and coups. In the event of a new coup, the West will immediately begin to transform this territory into a new base for aggression against Russia. Those who do not accept the new Russian power will be able to leave quietly for Europe [...]
The experience of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century has shown that any "Ukrainian renaissance," any Ukrainization, does not lead to the emergence of a population loyal to Moscow, but to the cultivation of aggressive Ukrainian nationalism. Therefore, in order to avoid all these negative effects in the future, a complete Russification of the population is necessary. And there is nothing forced about this. For example, Kyiv is an absolutely Russian city in terms of culture and language, on which the Ukrainian language and culture have been imposed.
NARRATIVES: 1. Ukraine poses a military threat to Russia through its alliance with NATO. 2. Russia cannot create stable puppet states, so it must annex them. 3. Ukrainian identity is artificial and leads to aggressive anti-Russian nationalism. 4. Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities are essentially Russian and have been forcibly Ukrainianized.
PURPOSES: To justify cultural genocide and the total annexation of Ukraine; to present the Russian aggression as a defensive measure; to deny Ukraine's right to exist as an independent state; to legitimize policies of forced assimilation and mass deportations.
Reality: The annexation of Ukraine constitutes a serious violation of international law, and the forced Russification and deportation of the population constitutes cultural genocide.
WHY THE NARRATIVES ARE FALSE: The arguments presented in the article constitute an attempt to justify crimes against humanity. The annexation of a sovereign state is a crime of aggression under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Russia is already under investigation for war crimes and genocide in Ukraine, and the International Court of Justice has issued provisional measures against Russia for violating the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
Ukraine does not constitute a base for NATO aggression. It was not a member of NATO at the time of the invasion in February 2022, and the North Atlantic Alliance has been a defensive organization since its founding. According to Article 5, NATO only responds to attacks on its members, it does not initiate aggression. Russian propaganda reverses reality: it was Russia that attacked Ukraine in 2014 by annexing Crimea and supporting separatists in Donbas, then launched a full-scale invasion in 2022. In response, feeling geopolitically and militarily insecure, Ukraine announced that it wanted to join NATO, amending its Constitution in 2019 to that effect.
The reference to "Novorosia" revives one of the geopolitical concepts from the Tsarist Empire period with the aim of denying the legitimacy of Ukraine's modern borders. This term, revived by Russian propaganda, is not based on international law, as it refers to a 19th-century Russian province.
Kyiv is not and never has been a Russian city. It is the historical center of Eastern Slavic civilization and the capital of Kyivan Rus, which was a distinct medieval state with a population that later gave rise to the Ukrainian, Russian, and Belarusian nations. Russian propaganda ignores a number of chapters in the history of the Ukrainian people. Kyiv was first mentioned in documents in 482, while Moscow appears in documents almost 700 years later, in 1147. Ukraine did not truly come under Moscow's control until the end of the 18th century, during the reign of Catherine II, and even then, the Russian Empire was unable to assimilate it easily. 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, including Romania. The new Ukrainian state was conquered by the Bolsheviks in 1920.
Forced Russification policies caused enormous tragedies in Ukraine, but also in other countries occupied by the Russian army. The Holodomor of 1932-1933 killed between 3.5 and 5 million Ukrainians. The systematic Russification policy during the Soviet period aimed to destroy Ukrainian national identity through the persecution of intellectuals and mass deportations. The same policy was applied to the Romanian minority in northern Bukovina and Bessarabia.
In this sense, the concept of "total Russification" described in the article constitutes the very definition of cultural genocide, according to the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Article 2 defines genocide as a series of actions "committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group." The forced deportations of Ukrainian children to Russia, documented by the International Criminal Court , already constitute acts of genocide for which arrest warrants have been issued for President Vladimir Putin and the Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova.
Russia has created a series of self-proclaimed republics and frozen conflicts to keep former Soviet states under control. The reference to "Maidans and coups" distorts the reality of the events of 2014. The Revolution of Dignity (Euromaidan) was a popular democratic movement against corruption and for European integration, not a coup. President Viktor Yanukovych fled the country before being removed from office through constitutional procedures by the Ukrainian Parliament with a majority of over 70%. The change of power took place following two democratic elections in the spring and autumn of 2014.
CONTEXT: The publication Ukraina.ru is part of the Kremlin-controlled media ecosystem and promotes propaganda narratives. The argument presented in the article follows the classic propaganda model: dehumanizing the adversary (denying Ukrainian identity), presenting aggression as a defensive measure, and justifying forced assimilation as a political solution. The international community has strongly condemned the Russian aggression against Ukraine through multiple UN General Assembly resolutions. The European Union and the United States have imposed severe sanctions on Russia for violating international law.
