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According to pro-Kremlin propaganda, Ukraine cannot exist without Russia, and the political elites in Kyiv are made up of non-Ukrainians who want to destroy the country.
Disinformation: Russia has helped Ukrainians free themselves from foreign yoke every time. Ukraine has never existed as a state
NEWS: Ukraine was not formed as an independent state, it was part of the Russian Empire, becoming a state subject during the USSR. The short life of the Ukrainian People's Republic was made possible by the German occupation, and not as a consequence of a national liberation movement. Even in 1991, when Ukraine became independent following the collapse of the USSR, there was no national liberation movement [...].
Ukrainian nationalism was invented by the elites, and the leaders of these trends were not ethnic Ukrainians. For Ukrainians, being part of the Russian Empire was a blessing, unlike the Polish rule [...] History is now repeating itself. Ukraine is run by insane, inept and greedy leaders, many of whom are not ethnic Ukrainians, for whom citizens are just draft animals and cannon fodder.
[...] Ethnic Russians never came to occupy Ukraine. Usually the Ukrainians would ask the Russians to free them from the Poles, Swedes, Germans and Turks.
Russia was always victorious because its goal was not getting rich, nor the desire to impose its own culture or its own rules of the game, but equity, as it was understood in different periods.
NARRATIVES: 1. The political leaders in Kyiv are not Ukrainian and are just playing the citizens. 2. Ukraine did not exist as a state and was created by Russia.
SOCIAL CONTEXT / ETHOS: The article published in RIA NOVOSTI is signed by Viktor Medvedciuk, presented as a Ukrainian leader, president of the Civic Movement Council "Another Ukraine". The main ideas of this text are reflected in a number of pro-Kremlin publications. Medvedciuk is presented as the voice of an independent politician from Ukraine who tells the "truth" about the past and present of the Russian-Ukrainian relations. Various blogs and Telegram channels have developed a series of false narratives based on this text. Viktor Medvedchiuk was the head of various pro-Kremlin political projects in Ukraine and is a personal friend of Vladimir Putin, who is also godfather to one of his daughters. Arrested on charges of treason by the Ukrainian authorities, Medvechiuk was handed over to Moscow in September 2022 in a prisoner exchange. Since then, the Kremlin has been using Medvedchiuk to create more credible propaganda messages.
In fact, Viktor Medvedciuk is rehashing some of the false narratives promoted by Russian leaders in recent years to justify attacking Ukraine since 2014 and Moscow's imperial expansionist claims. On July 12, 2021, the article On the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians, signed by President Vladimir Putin, was published on the Kremlin website. The Russian president presented the history of the Ukrainian people from the point of view of official Russian historiography, claiming that Ukraine was "a fringe" of Russia, and the Zaporozhian Cossacks were staunch Orthodox Russians. Vladimir Putin raised the question of the existence of Ukrainians as a people, calling them "Malo-Russians", meaning lesser Russians, who have no historical right to a separate state from Russia. The Russian president claims that Ukraine is entirely the fruit of the Soviet era, being created at the expense of historical Russia.
Russian propaganda also claims that the war is benefiting Kyiv, and the Ukrainian elites do not think about the people, giving up looking for a peace solution with Russia. The Russian press wrote that Zelensky is the servant of the West , while the war in Ukraine is in the interest of foreign-led politicians in Kyiv.
PURPOSE: To convince public opinion in Russia that the war of annexation of Ukraine is one of liberation and that it must be continued at all costs.
Reality: The Ukrainian language and culture were intentionally destroyed by the Russian Empire and the USSR, and the current Ukrainian political leaders are elected in free and democratic elections
WHY THE NARRATIVE IS FALSE: In reality, Ukraine is run by Ukrainian citizens. In democratic states, where the leadership is democratically elected, belonging to a minority, regardless of its nature (ethnic, religious, sexual, etc.) cannot be a criterion for excluding any person from the electoral race and from occupying some positions in the state. Likewise, in Ukraine, according to the law, one that holds Ukrainian citizenship is considered Ukrainian. The presence of members of minorities in the leadership and administration is a matter of routine not only in democratic states, but also in the case of many dictatorships and autocracies, including Russia. However, the majority of the Ukrainian political elite is made up of ethnic Ukrainians anyway.
The Ukrainian leadership is also accused of mobilizing the population for war and turning citizens into "draft animals and cannon fodder." But Russian propaganda omits the fact that the general mobilization in Ukraine is a consequence of Russia’s full-scale invasion, and in order to defend itself, Kyiv has declared martial law. Russian state-run media is pushing a false narrative about Ukrainian political leaders as "servants" who want to make money and stay in power. In reality, the losses suffered by society, by the Ukrainian political and economic elite as a result of the war are enormous. The cost of Russia's unprovoked invasion is huge and cannot in any way be in the interest of the government in Kyiv, which is trying to maintain control over the critical situation that the country is facing. More than 7 million people are below the poverty line , according to the World Bank. So, the critical situation in Ukraine is a direct consequence of the actions of the Moscow, not Kyiv elites.
A false narrative about Ukraine being created by Russia has also been perpetuated. In reality, Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin was forced to create the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic after occupying Ukraine to calm spirits following the Russo-Ukrainian War of 1917-1920. In the context of the Bolshevik revolution, the Ukrainian People's Republic was proclaimed in Kyiv in 1918, which had diplomatic ties to a number of states, including Romania. The new Ukrainian state was conquered by the Bolsheviks in 1920. Fearing the strong nationalist trends in the Soviet Union, the Bolsheviks approved in 1923 a doctrine of autochthonization of power in the new republics, giving Ukrainians broad cultural autonomy alongside total ideological control. The existence of a strong Ukrainian national movement is also confirmed by the harsh measures taken by the Russians to suppress it, both in the 19th century, during the Tsarist Empire, and in the USSR era, when the genocide known as Holodomor was organized. The crimes were also doubled by an intense policy of Russification, which, however, did not succeed in erasing the Ukrainian national identity.
The collapse of the USSR in 1991 was made possible by a national reawakening in all the states that had declared their independence. One of the symbolic events of that time was the national rally of 1990, when millions of Ukrainians joined hands and formed a 700-km living chain, connecting the cities of Kyiv and Lviv.
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