DISINFO: Russia does not hit civilians in Ukraine
SUMMARY
Russia does not hit civilians in Ukraine. It only strikes military infrastructure. If those who seized power in Ukraine had not started the war in Donbas against their own citizens in 2014 and if the Minsk Agreements had been implemented, nothing would have happened in 2022.
RESPONSE
This case may contain graphic/distressful content.
A recurring disinformation narrative from pro-Kremlin outlets denying war crimes committed by Russian forces during their full-scale military invasion of Ukraine.
Russia launched a massive missile and drone attack on several Ukrainian cities overnight to 28 December 2023, killing more than 20 and injuring scores of people across the country. Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, Odesa, Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia were targeted. At least 17 dead bodies were found in Kyiv alone. At least 28 people were injured as Russian missiles and drones hit residential buildings, hotels and medical facilities in Kharkiv on 31 December 2023. As this UN press release from 3rd January 2024 states:
"Since the wave of attacks by the Russian Federation across the country, beginning on 29 December until today, HRMMU has recorded 90 civilian deaths, including two children, and 421 civilians injured in 12 oblasts. This includes shelling and missile attacks, which reportedly killed eight civilians, and injured 29 in areas of Donetsk oblast occupied by the Russian Federation. Each civilian casualty will be independently verified by HRMMU".
Russia's armed forces have repeatedly been pounding and shelling Kherson, Mykolayiv, Odesa and other cities in the southeast of Ukraine. Russian missiles struck several civilian objects in Vinnytsia on 14 July 2022, killing and wounding dozens of civilians. A residential area was pounded in Kryvyi Rih on 9 July 2022. Russian forces also targeted a shopping centre in Kremenchuk on 28 June 2022. There is also plenty of convincing evidence of Russian troops’ involvement in mass killings, summary extrajudicial executions, torture, rape and other war crimes in Bucha and other small towns around Kyiv, committed in the first weeks of Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified invasion.
Finally, the article also attempts to justify Russia's invasion of Ukraine with disinformation about Donbas and the Minsk agreements. The conflict in Donbas is not a civil war but an act of Russian aggression. See a similar case about the Minsk agreements Ukraine and the West did not intend to observe the Minsk agreements.
Read similar disinformation cases claiming that Russia wages war humanely and does not hit civilians, Bucha was a setup organised by MI6, and West falsely accuses Russia of "abducting" Ukrainian children.
This disinformation claim was broadcast on the date mentioned above. Due to the EU decisions to temporarily restrict the spread and dissemination of RT, Sputnik and other instruments used to manipulate information and promote disinformation about the invasion of Ukraine inside the EU, access to the link may not work inside the EU.