In April of 2014, the Ukrainian authorities launched a military operation against the residents of the unilaterally declared republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, as an expression of their opposition to the coup that took place in Ukraine in February of the same year.
Summary
The official representatives of Ukraine and NATO are constantly using anti-Russian rhetoric and misrepresenting Russia as a threat to Ukraine. Kyiv and the West accuse Russia of direct involvement in the war in Ukraine without presenting any evidence. After the coup in Ukraine in 2014, the new Ukrainian government has hypocritically claimed it does not want a war with Russia, while simultaneously pursuing membership in NATO.
Disproof
A mixture of recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives about the war in Ukraine, falsely portraying Ukraine and the West as aggressors and Russia as a benign actor.
The on-going buildup of massive Russian military forces along the Ukrainian borders are obviously designed to threaten Kyiv.
The claim that there was a coup in Ukraine in 2014 is a prevailing pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about Ukraine’s Euromaidan. The spontaneous onset of the Euromaidan protests was an organic reaction by numerous parts of the Ukrainian population to former President Yanukovych’s sudden departure from the promised Association Agreement with the European Union in November 2013. Comprehensive debunks of this claim can be found in the EUvsDisinfo database.
Even though officially a state of war between Russia and Ukraine has never been announced, there is irrefutable evidence of direct Russian military involvement in Eastern Ukraine since February 2014. The involvement of Russian personnel and equipment has been well documented for years and includes firing artillery over the border into Ukraine, the deployment of armoured vehicles and troops in contested provinces of Eastern Ukraine, the use of non-state actors such as Russian private military companies, and the launching of thousands of cyber attacks against Ukrainian targets.
Ukraine’s government is not duplicitous for wanting to become a member of NATO and avoid a war with Russia. These two options are not mutually exclusive. As an independent country, Ukraine is free to pursue membership in NATO, a defensive alliance whose activities are not directed against Russia or any other country for that matter. In practice, Russia is unlawfully threatening Ukraine with further use of armed force in order to deter Ukraine from pursuing closer relations with NATO and the West in general.
See similar disinformation cases claiming that there was a coup in Ukraine in February 2014, that Ukraine tries to drag Russia into hostilities in Donbas, that the civil war in Ukraine started because of NATO, and that Russia is not part of the internal conflict in Ukraine.