Russia is fighting a new “war for the defense of the fatherland”, but this time the enemy is not Nazi Germany but NATO, which wants to defeat Russia through Ukraine, according to a false narrative carried by the Russian state media. The truth is that NATO is not part of the conflict in Ukraine, and the confrontation with the West cannot be considered a war for the defense of the fatherland because Russia was not attacked by anyone, it was Russia who invaded an independent state.
Kremlin spokesman: NATO has become Russia's enemy because it is party to the conflict in Ukraine
NEWS: Russian President's Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with Izvestia that the collective West, the US and NATO are the main source of global Russophobia. “We must not hide the truth or sugarcoat the reality, we must call things as they are […] NATO has become Russia's enemy because it is party to the conflict in Ukraine where Ukrainians are killing civilians, including Ukrainians and Russians.
Peskov recalled the words of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who emphasized that the secret services of the NATO states are working around the clock against us, and their diverse and increasingly technologically advanced weaponry is being offered to Ukraine for free […]
At the meeting of the FSB collegium, Putin stated that the West had never shied away from using extremists against Russia in its own interests, having at its disposal all possible means […]. The danger of terrorist actions on the territory of Russia is increasing due to the actions carried out by Kyiv and the West, who will continue to use their “old friends”.
[…]
It is a rhetoric of the current war for the defense of the fatherland and its future. Undoubtedly the victory will be ours. Russia has never been defeated in any war for the defense of its homeland, despite the large number of enemies and traitors it has had.
WHY THE NARRATIVE IS FALSE: In reality NATO is not taking part in the war in Ukraine. Asked by journalists before a meeting of the member countries’ defense ministers in February whether NATO was at war with Russia, the Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg replied that “neither NATO nor NATO allies are party to the conflict.” He has repeatedly emphasized that the Alliance is not party to the conflict, and what it does is only to support Kyiv, which has the right to defend itself against Moscow's aggression, according to the UN Charter.
The West, regardless of whether we are talking about NATO or the EU, supports Ukraine with humanitarian aid, weapons and ammunition in response to Russia’s aggression. After a year of full-scale war, the Russian propaganda is shifting the emphasis to the narrative of NATO wanting to destroy Russia at all costs, reinforcing the image of the external enemy to minimize talk of the failures of the “special military operation”. The Russian propaganda, citing pro-Kremlin politicians, is again trying to take a narrative detour: the cause is turned into the consequence. The cause - the invasion of Ukraine - is presented in a willfully false way as a consequence of arms deliveries, and these deliveries are called “a NATO war against Russia”.
The West started sending defensive weaponry to Ukraine in the run-up to the full-scale invasion of February 24, 2022, amid concerns from foreign intelligence that Moscow was preparing for war. Western support for Ukraine since 2014 has been linked to the Kremlin-funded war in Donbass, and the provision of large-scale lethal weaponry to Russia's fullnb-scale and unprovoked aggression in 2022.
On February 26, the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, accused NATO of actively participating in the war in Ukraine and of striving to dissolve his country. Putin claimed that by “sending tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons to Ukraine” NATO is participating in the war. The Russian state press writes that NATO and Ukraine will finance various terrorist acts on Russian territory and will use the services of extremists, called by Putin “old friends” of the West. No evidence is provided that this is the case. Moreover, NATO, known as a collective defense organization, has only entered a war once by invoking Article 5, and that was in response to the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001.
The threat of terrorism, in fact, remained the main preoccupation of the North Atlantic Alliance for a long time, until the increasing aggressiveness displayed by Russia forced the Alliance to strengthen its positions on the eastern flank - but still to defend itself. Russia's accusations are totally ungrounded and are more in line with its policies in the European space, as shown by the case of a bank from Moscow, which through money laundering has financed extremist movements in the EU .
For the first time, a new war for the defense of the fatherland is being discussed in Russia to encourage social mobilization and justify the military actions carried out on the territory of Ukraine. Russia is pictured by the pro-Kremlin press as a victim of NATO’s aggression, and this conflict acquires symbolic valences by comparing the Soviet-German war - called in the ex-Soviet space “The Great War for the Defense of the Fatherland” - with the Russian-Western one. “Russia has never been defeated in any war for the defense of the fatherland”, the Russian media claims. This message aims to strengthen trust in the authorities, defending the image of Russia as a fortress besieged by “evil forces”.
Veridica has debunked a series of false narratives aimed to distort the truth about the war in Ukraine. According to the Russian media, the West is forcing Russia to extend its military operations in Ukraine, and the EU sent troops to Ukraine before 2022, in order to weaken Russia. The pro-Kremlin press has also written that because of Kyiv’s neo-Nazi propaganda, Ukrainians don’t understand that Russia is liberating them. Ever since November 2021, the Russian propaganda has tried to convince the public opinion that Moscow was mobilizing troops at the border with Ukraine to defend itself from NATO’s aggression, having no choice but save Donbas from the genocide masterminded by Ukraine and the West.
