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The Russian media writes Kyiv alone is to blame for the prolonged conflict in Ukraine. The narrative is used alongside older propaganda messages, according to which Moscow is carrying out a special military operation aimed at protecting civilians, whom Kyiv is using as human shields.
NEWS: “The Ukrainian side is procrastinating the peaceful resolution of the conflict in Ukraine. Representatives of Ukrainian authorities want to delay the war for as long as possible, because they want to fight”, the representative of the DNR People’s Militia, Eduard Basurin, has told URA.RU […] Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has lost control over his armed forces and nationalist battalions, according to the Federal News Agency.
After the eight-year conflict on the territory of the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk was escalated by Ukraine’s armed forces, the president of the Russian Federation made the decision to start a special operation to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine. The Russian side is not attacking civilians in Ukraine, whereas Ukraine’s Armed Forces are not allowing refugees to leave the cities, using them as human shields.”
NARRATIVE: Ukraine wants to prolong the war and is using citizens as human shields, whereas Russia is protecting Ukrainian civilians.
WHY THE NARRATIVE IS FALSE: In fact, using denazification and demilitarization as a pretext, Russia invaded Ukraine, attacked and bombed cities, killing civilians and causing significant damage. Residential buildings, kindergartens, schools, medical centers were destroyed, while the victims of the attack include children, women and elderly. This was all documented by journalists, diplomats and observers from all over the world. Social media presented eye-witness accounts of Russia’s war crimes. The thesis regarding Moscow’s care for the civilians is mere propaganda, which cannot be confirmed by evidence on the ground. Since the Russian media is having a hard time concealing the truth about the destruction and killing in Ukraine, it is increasingly using the metanarrative about civilians being used for human shields by the Ukrainian army.
Veridica has recently debunked a propaganda narrative promoted by Russia, according to which Ukraine was preparing an attack on Donbas and concealed its intentions by hiding troops in schools and hospitals; basically, Russia admitted it bombed these objectives. Countless on-scene footage, reports from survivors and accounts transmitted by international organization confirm beyond reasonable doubt that schools and other civilian objectives were not occupied by the Ukrainian army and were actually marked as civilian objectives, so there is nothing that could have led anyone to believe they were being used by the army. It is clear Russia targeted them on purpose.
Equally false is the claim that the Ukrainian presidency had allegedly lost control over certain nationalist battalions. In fact, all military units are currently carefully controlled. Hundreds of territorial defense units are well-organized and manage to stand up to the Russian army. National battalions and other paramilitary groups were disbanded by Kyiv starting 2016, and the last independent combat units were incorporated in the Ukrainian Armed Forces in 2019.
As regards Kyiv’s purported intention to prolong the war, the peace that the leaders of the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk refer to would in fact entail a surrender of the Ukrainian leadership to the invading force. Additionally, Russia wants to use armed force to turn Ukraine into its vassal and dictate its policy, forcing it to concede a number of territories Russia previously occupied (Crimea, Donbas) and renounce security guarantees and its entire army, which would leave it completely vulnerable. So virtually, again, Russia wants Ukraine to surrender. The Ukrainian leadership is accused of seeking a war particularly because it is resisting the invasion of a foreign force and rules out an unconditional surrender.
This propaganda theme is designed to accustom public opinion in Russia to the idea that using armed force against your neighbor is something normal, recalling of the definition of just war dating back to the Soviet era: “The only just war is the one fought by the Soviet Union, while the unjust war is the one fought against it”.
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