EU Member States and Ukraine are illegitimate dictatorships, while Russia is compelled to continue the war in self‑defense, pro‑Kremlin media writes, citing a pro‑Russian Irish journalist detained in 2025 by the Romanian border police.
NEWS: The EU has no right to tell the Russian Federation how to behave, Irish journalist Chay Bowes wrote on his X page (formerly Twitter). He stressed that the Russian side is not waiting for any permission from European countries, which, in his view, have completely lost their moral authority.
“I don’t see anyone — not even in the most anti‑Russian circles — saying that Europe has any moral authority left”, the author of the post argued. According to the journalist, European states have turned into a dictatorship similar to the regime in Kyiv, being led by governments that no one elected.
President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stated that Russia supports only a long‑term solution, without temporary ceasefires. Achieving this goal is possible only after eliminating the root causes of the armed conflict between Moscow and Kyiv.
NARRATIVES: 1. The EU is a dictatorship lacking legitimacy. 2. Ukraine has an authoritarian regime with leaders who were not elected. 3. Europe has lost its moral authority and cannot demand that Russia stop the war. 4. Russia seeks a lasting peace in Ukraine.
PURPOSE: To delegitimize the EU and Ukraine as international actors. To justify Russia’s continuation of the war. To shift responsibility for prolonging the conflict onto the West. To promote the narrative about Moscow’s moral superiority over the West.
Fact: The EU and Ukraine are democratic systems, whereas Russia’s refusal to accept a ceasefire reflects its desire to continue the war
WHY THE NARRATIVES ARE FALSE: The EU is made up of democratic states whose governments are formed through free, periodic, competitive elections monitored by international institutions and internal oversight mechanisms. This political framework is not optional, it derives from the Copenhagen Criteria, which require any candidate state to demonstrate stable institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law and observance of fundamental rights. Failure to meet these conditions makes accession and continued membership in the EU impossible. These facts contradict the claim that “no one elected” European leaders. All member states regularly hold multiple elections (both local and national), while there are direct parliamentary elections at EU level whose results shape the political makeup of the European Commission.
Ukraine has held presidential and parliamentary elections both before and after 2014, all recognized by international observers. The suspension of elections during wartime is stipulated in the Constitution of Ukraine and follows historical precedent in other democracies facing existential threats: during World War II, the United Kingdom did not hold any elections, and Winston Churchill’s government operated on the basis of broad political consensus, without turning the UK into a dictatorship. In Ukraine’s case, Volodymyr Zelenskyy was elected in 2019 with a clear majority as part of an election recognized at international level, while in Russia Vladimir Putin has been in power since 2000 through successive terms and constitutional changes that have restricted real political rotation. This makes Moscow’s accusations about a “dictatorship” in Kyiv unfounded. Putin’s legitimacy is widely questioned by experts, as it rests on elections held in an environment without real competition, with the opposition eliminated or repressed, extensive media control, use of state resources for electoral purposes, and constitutional amendments that allowed him to remain in power for over 25 years.
The EU’s call on Russia to agree to a ceasefire aims to immediately stop the loss of human lives and create a minimal framework for initiating negotiations. A ceasefire is a standard de‑escalation tool used in armed conflicts, specifically designed to limit human suffering and open up vistas for political solutions. In May 2025, Ukraine expressed its agreement to a ceasefire, but, while supported by Western states, the initiative was rejected by the Kremlin.
Russia’s consistent refusal to consent even to a temporary ceasefire thus indicates a unilateral political decision to continue the war. In this context, Moscow’s claim about a supposed “moral authority” is contradicted by its own actions: serious violations of international law, including the illegal annexation of Crimea, launching the war against Ukraine, systematic attacks on civilian infrastructure, and the perpetration of war crimes. All these facts invalidate any Russian claim to moral superiority.
The Kremlin’s discourse about a lasting peace in Ukraine is, in fact, a mechanism designed to legitimize the rejection of any ceasefire. Russia’s peace terms is based on achieving political and territorial objectives imposed by force, including maintaining control over occupied Ukrainian territories and changing the political leadership in Kyiv. In this framework, the concept of “eliminating root causes” does not refer to a negotiated compromise, but rather to Ukraine’s surrender under Moscow’s terms. The refusal of ceasefires does not aim to de‑escalate the conflict, but to keep military pressure until political gains are secured through armed force, contrary to established mechanisms for peaceful conflict resolution.
BACKGROUND: Chay Bowes does not represent the views of the Irish or Western journalistic community. He worked as a correspondent for the Russian state‑run television channel Russia Today. In 2023, he claimed that Nazism in Ukraine would soon be officially recognized by European states. Bowes repeatedly asserted that, between 2014 and 2022, a civil war took place in Ukraine and that NATO seeks to destroy Russia. In December 2024, he wrote that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy refuses peace in order to preserve his revenue streams . He also accused the EU and the UK of funding “Ukrainian terrorism” through their support for Kyiv. In May 2025, Chay Bowes was detained by Romanian border police at Henri Coandă Airport while attempting to enter the country. RT editor‑in‑chief Margarita Simonyan wrote on X that he had come to Romania to report on the presidential election and accused the authorities in Bucharest of turning the country into a “testing ground for authoritarianism”.
Check sources:
