The desire of the Donbas population to join Russia must be respected, and Moscow will not accept a ceasefire as long as Ukraine remains armed, pro-Kremlin media claim.
NEWS: "For us, it is absolutely unacceptable to maintain a long-standing Nazified and militarized Ukraine. This directly contradicts the objectives of the special military operation," said the foreign minister, adding that Russia will not accept a ceasefire in Ukraine if the opposing side remains armed [...].
According to Lavrov, recognizing the realities on the ground in the Ukrainian conflict is not a matter of territory; it’s about the opinion of the people who live there.
"The realities, I want to emphasize once again, are not about territory. The realities on the ground reflect the opinion of the people living in these territories, whom the regime in Kyiv, which came to power illegally, considered terrorists and referred to as creatures, non-humans, and whose language, culture, religion, and traditions were banned by law. The people living in these territories have expressed, through referendums, how they want to build their future within the Russian Federation. This is where the territorial dimension of the issue comes in. The starting point must be the will of the people."
NARRATIVES: 1. Ukraine is a Nazi state. 2. Ukraine is being militarized by the West, and ending the war depends on disarming it. 3. The population of eastern Ukraine wants the region to be annexed to Russia. 4. The government in Kyiv is illegitimate and persecutes the Russian-speaking population.
PURPOSE: To undermine the legitimacy of the Ukrainian state and its leadership; to justify continuing the war and refusing a ceasefire; to legitimize territorial annexations; to shift the blame for the war onto Ukraine and the West.
Through the conditions it has set for a ceasefire, Russia wants to force Ukraine to surrender.
WHY THE NARRATIVES ARE FALSE: Sergey Lavrov's statement revives the meta-narrative launched by the Kremlin at the beginning of the full-scale invasion: Russia is correcting a historical wrong through "denazification" and "demilitarization." In Lavrov's statements, Nazism appears as an external process, induced by the West, which would legitimize the goals of the "special military operation" and transform aggression into a historic mission. This propaganda construct serves to evade an answer to the key question: why did Russia attack a neighboring state without being provoked or threatened?
Ukraine is not a Nazi state. There are far-right groups and ultra-nationalist movements, as in many European countries, but they do not control power and do not have sufficient electoral support to govern. In the 2019 elections, far-right parties did not enter parliament. Instead, President Volodymyr Zelensky's centrist Servant of the People party received massive support from voters in Russian-speaking regions. Moreover, Zelensky comes from a Jewish family. Three of his grandfather's brothers were killed during the Holocaust , and his grandfather fought in the Red Army against Nazi Germany. Nazi ideology is prohibited by law in both Ukraine and Western countries.
Lavrov refuses any truce, stating that Russia will not accept a ceasefire if Ukraine remains armed. In the logic of international relations, such a condition does not describe a peace negotiation, but a demand for surrender: the attacked state is required to give up its defense capabilities, while the aggressor retains the benefits gained through military aggression. In fact, this confirms the intention to continue the war until a political outcome favorable to Moscow is achieved through the victim's surrender.
The "referendums" in the occupied regions, a sham staged by Moscow
The head of the Russian diplomacy made a rhetorical move when he talked about "realities on the ground." Initially, this phrase referred to the military situation—control over territories, army positions, or front lines. Later, however, Lavrov shifted the discussion to the will of the people, invoking the so-called referendums organized in the occupied regions. This shift in emphasis is useful for Russian propaganda and for explaining the lack of clear military successes: after years of fighting in Donbas, the Russian army has not even managed to fully occupy the Donetsk region, so the argument of military control is replaced by invoking the will of the Russian-speaking population.
The problem is that these consultations of the population were not recognized as legitimate referendums. They were organized under military occupation and without independent international observers. For this reason, the international community considers them illegal and without legal value. The UN General Assembly condemned the so-called referendums organized by Russia in September 2022 in the occupied Ukrainian regions and rejected any attempt to change the status of these territories. Similarly, the EU and OSCE member states have described the votes held in some localities in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions as illegal. The international press has reported pressure on the population and the organization of the vote under the control of the occupying forces, conditions that are incompatible with the standards of free elections.
Furthermore, the invocation of popular will is contradicted by sociological data from the period of the invasion. A survey conducted by the International Institute of Sociology in Kyiv in May 2022 showed that the majority of respondents, including those from war-affected areas, opposed territorial concessions to Russia. These results suggest that the narrative about the popular support for annexation does not reflect social reality.
"Persecution of Russian speakers," a narrative used for all countries targeted by Russia
The idea of the "persecution of Russian speakers" is part of a broader set of false narratives promoted by Russia in the post-Soviet space. The same rhetoric has been used by Moscow in relation to other states that were part of the former Soviet Union, including the Baltic states, Georgia, and Moldova, where the Kremlin has repeatedly claimed that Russian-speaking populations are discriminated against and need protection.
In the case of Ukraine, the reality is more nuanced. For decades, the Ukrainian state had relatively permissive legislation regarding the use of Russian in public spaces, administration, and the media. It was only after the annexation of Crimea and the outbreak of war started by the Russian Federation that Kyiv adopted a series of measures aimed at strengthening the role of the Ukrainian language and reducing the cultural and political influence of Russian, which was increasingly perceived as a tool of pressure and external influence in a context of military aggression.
In reality, it was precisely the Russian-speaking communities in eastern and southern Ukraine that were among the most affected by the war started by Russia. Numerous cities where Russian was the dominant language — such as Avdiivka, Bakhmut, Pokrovsk, and other towns in Donbas — were devastated by Russian army bombardments. Therefore, those who have suffered the most from Russia's military intervention are the very Russian-speaking residents that the Kremlin propaganda claims to be protecting.
CONTEXT: Sergey Lavrov is one of the longest-serving foreign ministers in the world and the Kremlin's main diplomatic spokesperson. He has been Russia's foreign minister since 2004. Since the start of the large-scale invasion of Ukraine, Lavrov has become one of the main voices promoting the Kremlin's official positions internationally. Another constant in his discourse is his reference to the so-called "realities on the ground." With this phrase, Lavrov conveys the idea that Russia's annexation of Ukrainian territories should be accepted as a fait accompli in any potential negotiation process.
