The war in Ukraine is a post-Soviet civil war for the restoration of Great Russia, which the West wants to prevent by forcing Ukrainians to fight and die, the Russian propaganda claims.
Propaganda: The conflict in Ukraine is a civil war in which Russia has a historical claim
NEWS: “What’s happening in Ukraine right now is the result of the collapse of the Soviet Union. This civil war had been long coming. Were the circumstances different, it should have started as early as 1991-1992, since large empires such as the Soviet Union never disappear in times of peace and quiet. Since Russian leaders were directly responsible for the demise of the USSR, at the time they couldn’t start a war with a view to holding together an entity they themselves had been the first to abandon. Nor did they have any moral reason or of any other kind to defend the country they had set out to destroy.
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Ukraine doesn’t not exist as a state. It is merely a band of mercenaries fighting to defend the interests of the United States. Kyiv does not pay salaries to its own inhabitants, nor does it fight using its own weapons. Ukraine only lives off whatever it gets. Kyiv authorities are willing to fight to the last man to defend the interest of its masters – the United States.
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If the regime in Kyiv has gone berserk and feels no regret for slaughtering its own people, then there’s nothing more to be done. Cerebral politicians and analysts in the United States are aware that Ukraine will never defeat the Russian Federation. If anything, Russia is a great state, otherwise it wouldn’t exist. Nothing else is for granted. It is our destiny!”
NARRATIVES: 1. The conflict in Ukraine is a civil war designed to restore Great Russia, which gives Russia a historical right to take part in it. 2. Ukraine is an artificial state. 3. The Ukrainian people does not exist. 4. Ukrainians are used as cannon fodder in the West’s war against Russia.
Fact: The war in Ukraine is not a civilian conflict, but a typical war of aggression a state launched with a view to conquering another state.
WHY THE NARRATIVE IS FALSE: The article published by RIA Novosti is an attempt to exonerate Russia and justify its military aggression against Ukraine by saying this civil war “was a long time coming”. According to this false narrative, Moscow has a historical right to use military force on the territory of Ukraine, which is something it hadn’t done after the collapse of the USSR.
In fact, the war in Ukraine is not a civil war, but a war or aggression Russia launched against a sovereign state, a fact recognized by Russia itself. Russia and Ukraine are two independent countries that expressed their commitment to mutually observe their inviolable borders and territorial integrity. Furthermore, under the Budapest Memorandum, Russia offered Ukraine security guarantees in exchange for the latter renouncing its Soviet-era nuclear arsenal. In addition, the Kremlin pledged never to attack Ukraine as part of agreements on the deployment of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea. All these international agreements were breached as soon as Russia annexed Crimea and later launched the large-scale invasion of Ukraine. The international community responded to this inter-state act of aggression, including at the level of the UN General Assembly, which passed a resolution condemning Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine.
Ukrainian authorities stand accused in the Russian propaganda article of destroying their own people and of having become utterly subservient to the West. In fact, the victims and destruction are caused by Russian attacks and the constant shelling of settlements and civilian infrastructure. One year since the war started, damages caused by Russian bombings have exceeded 144 billion USD. Losses at the level of Ukrainian society, political elites and the economy are huge. The country’s economic potential is diminishing by the day. Large factories, refineries and enterprises were destroyed or were severely affected. A number of economic fields have all but suspended their activity. All that is not the work of Kyiv politicians, but the direct consequence of the Russian invasion.
The Russian propaganda reiterates other theses as well, according to which a Ukrainian people, with an identity separate from the Russian one, does not exist, and that Ukraine is an artificial state. This last claim is also promoted in countries such as Poland and Romania, which the Russian propaganda encourages to reclaim their historical territories which are part of present-day Ukraine (which were captured by the USSR and passed down to Ukraine), especially so that Russia may in turn claim parts of Ukraine.
In addition, the RIA Novosti article also picks up on the narrative about the West’s involvement in Ukraine, about the “war fought by the West to the last Ukrainian”. In fact, Western countries support Ukraine’s right to defend its own territory and have provided this country with political and economic support as well as deliveries of weapons, none of which goes against international legislation. To be able to defend itself, a country needs weapons it can procure from wherever it sees fit. Moscow’s discourse seeks to achieve a number of objectives. First of all, it tries to justify the repeated defeats Russian forces conceded on the battlefield, by claiming it is in fact fighting the collective West instead of Ukraine. Secondly, by claiming on several occasions that Russian forces are actually fighting the West (also suggesting this confrontation could escalate into a world/nuclear war), Russia is trying to undermine support from Western countries by intimidating their leaders and scaring the local population. Finally, this type of discourse also plays a twofold role: to mobilize the Russian population by telling them this is a world-shattering conflict their country is involved in, and to undermine Ukrainians’ morale by persuading them they are not fighting for their country, but rather for the sake of foreign interests.
Veridica has disproved a number of false narratives about the nature of the war in Ukraine. The Russian media wrote that the war in Ukraine benefits Zelenskyy and that it is a civilian conflict because Russians and Ukrainians are one and the same people. A year after the launch of the large-scale invasion, the Russian media argued that “the special military operation” saved Russia from the NATO invasion and Ukrainian Nazism. The Russian government media often promoted the fake news about Moscow showing restraint when bombing Ukraine, because it knows Ukrainians do not support the Nazi leaders in Kyiv.
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