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Russia claims Ukraine bombed targets on its territory. The lack of any strategic importance of these targets, as well as the similarities with disinformation narratives launched in the past by Russian propaganda, suggest however that Moscow is looking for new excuses to intensify its bombings in Ukraine.
Russia promises reprisals and launches multiple narratives regarding the attacks
Explosions were heard in the Russian oblasts of Bryansk and Belgorod, located close to the Ukrainian border. The Russian army accused Ukraine of having staged an attack on these regions, killing 8 civilians, including a child. Two residential buildings were damaged in the Bryansk oblast, and multiple explosions were also reported in the village of Spodariushin in the Belgorod oblast.
The Russian media swiftly published information about an alleged attack on Russian areas, presenting them as facts.
“Russian military used C-400 missiles to shoot down the MI-8 Ukrainian gunship which previously attacked an area in the Bryansk Oblast, an official of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation said. […] The area in question is Klimovo village in Bryansk Oblast, according to a Ministry press release. Anti-air defenses downed the gunship close to the border with the Chernihiv Oblast”, the URA website writes, adding that 8 people, including a child, were killed in the attack.
The news was also picked up by Sputnik, RIA Novosti, Moskovskij Komsomolets, Izvestia, and was also published on the Telegram accounts of state media outlets, as well as on the websites of state-owned TV stations.
The Russian media also published a proposal advanced by Mikhail Sheremet, a State Duma deputy for the region of Crimea, according to whom Russian forces should bomb Kyiv in retaliation. A day earlier, the Ministry of Defense in Moscow had also threatened Ukraine it would bomb the capital-city “unless the Ukrainian army ceases all diversions on the territory of the Russian Federation”.
According to Kyiv’s official explanation, Ukraine never attacked any town, village, military or civilian objective on the territory of Russia. The National Defense and Security Council in Kyiv warned on a number of occasions, however, that Moscow will resort to a series of terrorist attacks and military provocations on its own territory in order to blame Ukraine.
Shortly after reports came in of the explosions in Bryansk and Belgorod, the National Defense and Security Council in Kyiv said that Ukraine never organized any attack, and that the Ukrainian army is merely concerned with the defense of its own territory. Kyiv authorities say Moscow staged a series of terrorist attacks targeting its own citizens on Russian territory.
In fact, Kremlin-linked media has provided different and conflicting interpretations of this incident: some media institutions wrote that Ukraine launched missile attacks from its territory, while others said 2 cars exploded. The final and “conclusive” explanation provided by the Ministry of Defense claimed Ukrainian gunships killed 8 civilians. All the three stories were run in parallel in Russian media.
Why Russia’s narratives appear to be false
On numerous occasions in the past, Russia resorted to the strategy of spreading multiple fake news regarding a certain incident. Such was the case, for instance, of the Malaysia Airlines aircraft shot down by pro-Russian rebel forces, when the Russian television spread numerous disinformation themes and fake news designed to shift responsibility to the Ukrainian side. The avalanche of narratives flooding the media right now regarding alleged attacks on Russia suggests that the Kremlin is employing the same tactic.
On the other hand, Ukraine’s hypothetical plan to attack rural areas in the Bryansk and Belgorod oblasts devoid of any military importance is nothing short of strange. Moreover, considering Russia has a much more advanced and modern anti-air defense system compared to Ukraine, the possibility that 2 or 3 Ukrainian gunships entered Russian airspace and actually managed to hit their targets again seems to be a sham.
Furthermore, Kyiv has repeatedly called on Western countries to provide Ukraine with fighter jets and gunships in order to be able to fend off Russia’s air strikes. Accordingly, Ukraine doesn’t have enough aircraft to organizes its own defenses!
It is clear that Russia is always on the lookout for new excuses to escalate the conflict, as well as to rally more support for the “special military operation”, which is how the Kremlin officially describes Russia’s war against Ukraine.
In the last two weeks, we could notice Moscow has been preparing public opinion at home for a reescalation of the conflict, including by resuming mortar shelling on Kyiv. To this end, the Kremlin is trying to inoculate hatred against Ukrainian armed forces. Veridica has already disproved a disinformation narrative, according to which Kyiv is torturing war prisoners of war and refuses to observe the Geneva Convention. Russian propaganda continues to sow hatred and anger towards Ukrainian military, described as “Neonazis”, with a view to rallying increased popular support for Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Experts with the National Security and Defense Council in Kyiv have labeled the press release issued by the Russian Ministry of Defense as a propaganda narrative aimed at generating an anti-Ukrainian public hysteria in Russia, in order to mobilize human, financial and technological resources for the war and gather more grassroots support for the “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Similarly, the launch of the large-scale invasion on February 24 was preceded by a number of false narratives that justified the invasion, from the so-called acts of sabotage and terrorist attacks in the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts, to stories about the persecution of Russian speakers.
Worth noting is that, although it denied having orchestrated any attacks on the territory of Russia, Ukraine did not rule out the possibility or carrying out such attacks in the future, in case its command centers are attacked. Adviser to the Ukrainian President’s Office, Oleksiy Arestovych, says that Ukraine is capable of responding in kind: “We have extraordinary capabilities of attacking targets in Russia. For the time being we have not undertaken such actions, since every war has its own level of escalation. If you want to escalate, let’s escalate”.
Equally important is also the context in which Russia accuses Ukraine of having launched attacks on its territory – in the wake of its large-scale invasion of Ukraine, when Russia nearly destroyed Mariupol and caused significant damages in other Ukrainian cities, bombed numerous civilian objectives and killed countless civilians. Russian forces now stand accused of having committed war crimes, from summary executions of civilians to rapes.
