Russia does not threaten anyone, and it does not intend to attack Ukraine or threaten any of its neighbours in any way. All that Russia wants is to preserve the security of its lands and citizens, and to support the legitimate rights of the people of the Donbas region, including 700,000 citizens with Russian citizenship, to preserve their culture, language and belonging to the Russian world, without any infringement on Ukrainian sovereignty, and without even support for the separatist tendencies of those republics.
Summary
The United States, and the West in general, thanks to their media domination, are trying to impose on the world an idea that what is happening is Russian aggression against Ukraine. Russia did absolutely nothing in Ukraine, but the hysteria in the Western press was effectively equal to Russiagate, the source of which, as we later learned, was a paid report by Hillary Clinton, based on false information from a former British intelligence officer, Christopher Steele.
Disproof
This article contains at least two recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives about Russia doing "absolutely nothing in Ukraine" and that Russiagate has no basis in reality.
First, the war in Ukraine is a well-documented act of aggression by Russian armed forces, ongoing since February 2014. There is irrefutable evidence of direct Russian military involvement in Eastern Ukraine, in the Donbas. Russia is supporting its proxies with weapons, its active-duty soldiers serve there and its top military commanders visit the war zone to coordinate joint efforts with the separatists.
On 21 February 2022, in violation of international law, President Putin recognised the independence of two breakaway regions of Ukraine and ordered Russian forces to perform 'peacekeeping' functions.
Second, the probe into Russia's meddling with the US elections was not based on Steele's dossier. There were plenty of reasons for US authorities to open an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US elections, as Volume 5 of the Intelligence Committee of the US Senate on Russian Interference in the 2016 election (released in August 2020) shows, which highlights many elements that were not covered by the previous Mueller Report.
Although Mueller’s inquiry had only stated that the investigation “did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities”, it unequivocally established that Russia attempted to interfere in the election in Trump’s favour. Pro-Kremlin disinformation, however, has repeatedly portrayed Mueller’s work as proof that there was no such interference and that Russia is always falsely accused.
See similar cases that Russia has nothing to do with the parties involved in the conflict in Eastern Ukraine; that Russia cannot ensure full truce in Donbas because it is not a party to the conflict; that Russiagate was a hoax invented by the American deep state; and that the US President’s Russia affair is a factless conspiracy theory.