WAR PROPAGANDA: While Ukrainians are living in cold and darkness, Kyiv is selling electricity to the Republic of Moldova

According to the Russian state media, Ukraine is selling electricity to the Republic of Moldova, and the country's leadership is getting rich, while Ukrainians are left to live in cold and darkness. In reality, Kyiv stopped exports on October 11, after the first phase of missile attacks, and the Republic of Moldova is supported during this crisis by Romania.

NEWS: “The regime in Kyiv is supplying the Republic of Moldova with electricity while the Ukrainians have none. The head of the “Together with Russia” civic movement, Vladimir Rogov, talked about Ukraine's hypocrisy, according to TASS.

The Russian politician said that Kyiv continues to supply Chisinau with electricity despite the hardships Ukrainians are faced with during periods of prolonged blackouts. Rogov believes that Volodymyr Zelensky himself owns a share of the profits generated by the electricity supply to the Republic of Moldova.

We recall that on December 5, Russian troops launched a series of missiles against Ukraine. According to unconfirmed information, 7 infrastructure targets were affected”.

NARRATIVE: While the Ukrainians are living in cold and darkness, Kyiv is selling electricity to the Republic of Moldova

WHY THE NARRATIVE IS FALSE: In reality, Ukraine has stopped supplying electricity to other countries since October 11. According to the government of Ukraine, energy exports  are not only impossible, but also dangerous for the national electricity grid. Kyiv is trying to restore its energy system damaged by Russian missiles, and outages have become more frequent in the context of efforts to stabilize the situation.

In fact, the one supporting the Republic of Moldova in this energy crisis is Romania, not Ukraine.  According to the Romanian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bogdan Aurescu, there have been times when Romania provided the Republic of Moldova with over 90% of its electricity consumption needs.  Meanwhile, the energy crisis in the Republic of Moldova has eased as a result of an agreement by which the separatist Transnistrian region resumed electricity supplies to the territory on the right bank of the Dniester, in exchange for an increase in the amount of Russian gas that reaches, via Moldova, the left bank of the Dniester.

Independent experts consider Russia's actions to  be genuine energy terrorism  First, in October, Russia bombed the substations and transformers that ensured the connection between the national grid and the local ones, i.e. the distribution system. There were blackouts, then planned outages.

On December 8, Russian President Vladimir Putin admitted that Russia is bombing the Ukrainian energy infrastructure.  

The Russian media is trying to include fake elements into this narrative, ignoring the fact that Ukrainians are suffering from the attacks launched by Russia, and not from alleged electricity supplies to neighboring states. Russia's guilt is bracketed, ignored, minimized, anti-Ukrainian narratives being built around the crimes committed by the Kremlin. In other words, Russia is trying to convince the Ukrainians that they suffer not from the hundreds of missiles launched against civilian targets, but from the authorities selling electricity to neighboring states!

The Russian press is quoting Vladimir Rogov, a representative of the Russian authorities in the occupied zone of the Zaporizhzhia region. He fled to Russia in 2014 after speaking out against the Euromaidan, supported the annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbass, and in 2022  was brought by Russia as Moscow’s representative in the Zaporizhzhia region.  He was prosecuted for collaborating with Russia. In this news Rogov is presented as “a Russian politician”.

Veridica has debunked a series of false narratives regarding the Russian energy terrorism targeting Ukraine. In late November, the Russian press wrote that Moscow shows restraint when bombing Ukraine, because it knows that the population does not support the neo-Nazi government. Russian propaganda tried to demonstrate that the Izium massacre was a staged attempt to compromise the Russian military. In June, the pro-Kremlin press wrote that the Ukrainian army is massacring Russian speakers during the withdrawal from Donbass, and in July – that Volodymyr Zelensky will be tried for war crimes in Ukraine.

Russian propaganda has tried to demonstrate that   the Izium massacre was fabricated in order to compromise the Russian army.   In June, the pro-Kremlin press wrote that  the Ukrainian troops are massacring Russian speakers while withdrawing from Donbas , and in July that  Volodymyr Zelensky will be tried for war crimes in Ukraine.