The conflict in Ukraine is a civil war involving the same people, formally divided into two different states, according to the Russian state media, citing a State Duma deputy from Vladimir Putin's party. In reality, the war in Ukraine is a military aggression by Russia, against a neighboring state and people, condemned by the international community.NEWS: “The international press is trying to convince the Russians and the Ukrainians that they are two different peoples, which is not true, the deputy in the State Duma of the Russian Federation, representative of the United Russia party and first deputy to the head of the Committee for Tourism and Tourist Infrastructure, Nicolai Valuev, claims in an interview with Ukraina.ru.“It's a special operation (actually, that's not quite the right name, it's more of a bigger civil war). No matter how much they try to convince us that we are different, in reality we are one people”, Valuev said […]The inhabitants of the planet are told that the special operation is a clash of two peoples, nations, states. In reality, we are talking about one people, and the conflict is a civil war, the parliamentarian said”.NARRATIVE: The armed conflict in Ukraine is a civil war because Russians and Ukrainians are one people.WHY THE NARRATIVE IS FALSE: Russian propaganda resumes the narrative about the unity of the Russian and Ukrainian people promoted around the time of the invasion of Ukraine to justify the “special military operation”. This time, the narrative is used to distance Russia from the image of the aggressor – if it’s a civil war, it’s an internal conflict, not an inter-state one. Therefore, the other states should not get involved in this conflict. The propaganda narrative manipulates public opinion, selectively using various political, historical and legal arguments that justify the military aggression and mask the war crimes committed by Russia on the territory of Ukraine.The article is based on the “Ukraine is an artificial state” metanarrative. In the last two years, the Russian press has shown the reader that the two “sister states” are closely related to each other, and the efforts made by the West to “separate” these former Soviet republics will not succeed. “Ukraine cannot exist without Russia, being a creation of the USSR, and the Ukrainian language is, in fact, a dialect of the Russian language , according to a 2021 fake news. On July 12, 2021, an article signed by Vladimir Putin himself, entitled “On the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians” was published on the Kremlin's website. The disinformation narratives that circulated after this article appeared aligned with the political theses of the Kremlin leader. The article repeats the classic narrative about Ukraine as a “false state”. In Putin’s view Europeanized Ukraine is an anti-Russia, which the Russian president wants to combat in his article. Vladimir Putin believes that Russians and Ukrainians are historically close or even the same people.In reality, Ukrainians and Russians are not one people. The two languages are not identical, they are 62% similar , according to studies; the Ukrainian language is more similar to Belarusian and Polish.
After the invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainians' hatred of Russians and Russia reached a peak, and the process of decommunization was complemented by a policy of de-Russification and cultural decolonization.
Russia recognized Ukraine's independence, provided security guarantees through the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, and pledged to respect its political borders. It violated its own commitments and treaties to which it is a signatory by invading and illegally annexing Crimea, financing the war in Donbass and invading Ukraine on February 24 this year. According to international law, the war in Ukraine is a military aggression. The member states of the UN General Assembly voted for a resolution condemning the Russian aggression in Ukraine , and a series of mechanisms were launched at international level to designate Russia as a state that finances terrorism. In November of this year, the European Parliament declared Russia a “state sponsor of terrorism” , the Kremlin’s actions being criticized for violating the norms of international law and destroying the foundations of global security.The UN General Assembly also voted a resolution in favor of creating a compensation mechanism for the destruction - of a human and material nature – caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine .
Veridica has debunked a string of similar false narratives regarding Russia’s “historical right” to invade the Ukrainian state. The Russian press wrote that the US has been arming Ukraine since 2014 , to push it into a war with Russia, and because of Kyiv’s neo-Nazi propaganda, Ukrainians do not understand that Russia is here to liberate, not occupy them. In 2021, the Russian propaganda tried to convince the public opinion that Moscow is rallying troops on the border with Ukraine in order to defend itself from a NATO aggression, having to save Donbas from the genocide organized by Ukraine and the West.
