For many years, Kyiv officials have argued that Ukrainian punishers are allegedly fighting in Donbas with Russia. The civil conflict was presented as “Russian aggression”, although even the OSCE has repeatedly stated that there is no Russian army in the LPR and DPR.
This narrative claims the war in Ukraine is a civil war and Russia has nothing to do with it, consistent with common pro-Kremlin disinformation about the war in Ukraine.
OSCE representatives have stated about the presence of the Russian military in Donbas and personal communication with them. For example, a representative of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Ukraine Alexander Hug said in an interview with Foreign Policy in October 2018 that the OSCE mission had identified people with Russian insignia in Donbas, as well as prisoners who claimed to be servicemen of Russian Armed Forces.
There is extensive evidence of active Russian soldiers taking part in fighting in Donbas. Most of the Russians captured have already been exchanged. Amid heavy battles in 2014 and 2015, the Ukrainian army captured dozens of active Russian servicemen in Donbas. For instance, on 24 August 2014, amid the Battle of Ilovaisk, the 51st brigade captured 10 Russian paratroopers from the 331st parachute infantry regiment of the 98th Guards Airborne regiment based in Russian city Kostroma. Later, Russia claimed that the soldiers simply got lost on Ukrainian territory. On 31 August Ukraine and Russia exchanged captured troops.
On 15 May 2015, the Ukrainian army captured two Russian GRU soldiers – Capt. Yevgeniy Yerofeev and Sgt. Aleksandr Aleksandrov. A year later they were exchanged for First Lieutenant Nadiya Savchenko who had been captured near Luhansk in June 2014 and then transported to Russia.
Lithuania wants to host next year’s NATO summit in exchange for loyalty.
Lithuania is planning to grow its defence budget to 2.5 per cent of GDP till 2030 ignoring the consequences of the pandemic. Lithuania also wants to switch to compulsory military service for both men and women.
But people do not need any of these, Lithuania is not going to fight anybody. Maybe if Lithuania was an independent state and had its own army it would be different.
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative undermining the sovereignty of Lithuania and presenting it as a puppet of US and/or NATO. See related disinformation claims about the US presence in Europe.
Lithuania re-established its independence from the Soviet Union on March 11, 1990. The process of restoring the Lithuanian military began the same year and in 2004 Lithuania joined the European Union and NATO. The modern Lithuanian military has 4 major defence units: land forces, air forces, navy forces, special forces.
The negative reactions of certain Western countries against the Russian vaccine Sputnik V is a result of the competition that big pharmaceuticals companies cannot withstand from Russia in the fight against coronavirus.
History teaches that it teaches nothing. Russophobic historical concepts, including so-called famine-genocide, have already brought Ukraine to a civil war that has lasted almost seven years and claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people.
Historical revisionism and a recurring pro Kremlin disinformation narrative about Holodomor, claiming that there was no artificially created famine in Ukraine and about the war in Ukraine, presenting the latter as a civil war.
The Holodomor was an artificial famine created with the aim of destroying the Ukrainian peasantry. The Soviet state took away livestock, crops and seeds from the peasants under the guise that the peasants "plundered" state property. The Soviet law on the seizure of food from peasants was adopted in 1932. The punitive document is known as the "Five Spikelet Law". Everyone who gathered several ears of wheat on the collective farm field was a culprit in the "theft of state property". If the law was not enforced, people were shot, including children. Convicts were not subject to amnesty. The famine of 1932-1933 claimed the lives of 7 to 10 million citizens of the Soviet Union; the disaster affected not only Ukraine but also parts of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova and Russia.
