The EU sent troops, trainers and spies to Ukraine long before the 2022 war, according to a Russian state media propaganda narrative citing the Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova. In fact, the EU has not sent any troops and is not taking part in the military actions underway on the territory of Ukraine.
The Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova says there are EU troops in Russia
NEWS: “The spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, has stated that the European Union sent troops to Ukraine long before 2022. Zakharova wrote about this on her Telegram channel, commenting on the statement made by the head of the EU diplomacy, Josep Borrell, according to whom “the European Union has not considered and is not considering the possibility of sending troops to Ukraine”.
“The army of the EU member states has long been sent to Ukraine; both as trainers, special services and mercenaries. Their sending started long before 2022”, the diplomat said.
Earlier, Maria Zakharova had said that the EU-Ukraine summit held in Kyiv confirmed that Brussels kept supporting the neo-Nazis in Kyiv who’d been serving the interests of the United States and NATO, with the aim of weakening the Russian Federation.
NARRATIVE: The EU sent troops to Ukraine before 2022 in order to weaken Russia
Reality: The EU states have ruled out sending troops to Ukraine because they want to avoid a direct conflict with Russia
WHY THE NARRATIVE IS FALSE: In reality, the EU has not and does not intend to send troops to Ukrainian territory to support the Ukrainian military. The spokesperson for Russia's MFA wants to justify the invasion of Ukraine by her country, carrying on the propaganda metanarrative launched last fall, according to which Moscow is fighting NATO and the EU on the territory of the Ukrainian state. The Russian press has reported in the past about foreign mercenaries on the territory of Ukraine, but without providing evidence.
The head of the European diplomacy said on February 5 that Ukraine deserves support, but without the direct military involvement of the EU member states. “Non-military behavior means no direct participation in the war. We would have been part of the conflict if we had introduced the troops, which has never been on our agenda”, Josep Borrell told “El Pais”.
Zakharova, however, says that US military and trainers have long been in Ukraine, but this time too she provides no evidence to support her statement. In fact, the West began sending defensive weaponry to Ukraine in the run-up to the war and amid concerns expressed by intelligence services abroad that Moscow was preparing to invade. Larger-scale arms deliveries did not occur until after the February 24 invasion, and even then, they were initially mainly individual and portable weapons, precisely because there were fears that Russia might consider itself provoked by the heavy weaponry.
After the invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops, the International Legion was established, made up of soldiers from 55 countries around the world, including Russia and Belarus. According to the spokesperson for this legion, Damen Magru, the participation of the legion fighters in the war has an individual character, all soldiers being subordinate to the Ukrainian command. Other foreign combat units do not exist on the territory of Ukraine.
The EU has been supporting Ukraine since the first days of the war. Apart from humanitarian and financial aid, some EU states are training Ukrainian soldiers and provide technology and equipment. The training of Ukrainian soldiers does not take place on the territory of Ukraine, but in European states , which means that the foreign instructors are not in the conflict zone. The EU is funding the military equipping of Ukraine, which is necessary for an effective defense against the aggression of the Russian Federation.
Veridica has debunked a series of false narratives launched by the Russian media regarding the nature of the war in Ukraine, according to which the US has been arming Ukraine since 2004, in order to push it into the war against Russia. During the military actions, Russian journalists were reporting that the inhabitants of the Zaporizhzhya region were waiting for the liberation of the cities of Mykolaiv, Kharkiv and Odesa from the Ukrainian Nazis. The pro-Kremlin press wrote that because of Kyiv’s neo-Nazi propaganda, Ukrainians do not understand that they are being liberated, not occupied by Russia. The Russian propaganda has tried to convince the public opinion, ever since November 2021, that Moscow is rallying troops on the border with Ukraine in order to defend itself from a possible NATO aggression, having to save Donbas from the genocide organized by Ukraine and the West.
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