Disinfo: Russia wants a peaceful solution in Donbas, but the US and the EU want Ukraine to attack

Summary

Russia is committed to a peaceful solution in the Donbas conflict, while the US and the EU want to send Ukraine to the offensive. Kyiv is not taking independent decisions in Donbas, everything depends on the wishes of the US and the EU. The crisis in Ukraine will allow, as Washington wants, to have an influence in Nord Stream 2 and at the same time to shake the US society, which is immersed in domestic political infighting. Pointing to an external enemy, the US hopes to achieve some kind of mobilisation, and it also disciplines Europe, establishing its power over it.

Disproof

Recurring disinformation narrative aiming to blame the West for the recent tensions in Donbas, exempting Russia of any responsibility for its military buildup at the Ukrainian border.

Contrary to the claim, the escalation of tensions was not the result of any US or Western provocation. Around March 2021, Moscow-backed separatists mounted tensions in Donbas for several weeks under the pretext that Ukrainian troops were planning an offensive. Nonetheless, Moscow and its proxies in Donbas kept on accusing Kyiv of continually breaking the truce and preparing for a full-scale attack, and the West of being behind the escalation and of inflaming tensions.

The situation culminated in a massive deployment of Russian troops along the Ukrainian border, accompanied by increasingly bellicose language in key Russian state media. Russia is seen by the international community as responsible for this escalation: on 12 April 2021, the G7 Foreign Ministers and the EU High Representative stated that "these large-scale troop movements, without prior notification, represent threatening and destabilising activities”. On 22 April 2021, Russia started withdrawing its troops from the Ukrainian border. However, this has not stopped clashes in Donbas, and part of the Russian military equipment remains in the region.

The United States sees the Nord Stream 2 pipeline as a Russian geopolitical project intended to divide Europe and weaken European energy security. However, there is no basis to the claim that it seeks to promote further conflict in Ukraine to influence it. This disinformation piece also includes recurrent false narratives about Ukraine and Europe's lack of sovereignty and their submission to the US.

See other examples in our database, such as the claims that by provoking Russia, Ukraine fills the role assigned by NATO, that the US may be sending Ukraine to a meat grinder in Donbas, that Ukraine intends to commit genocide in Donbas, or that by accusing Russia of playing a role in Donbas, Ukraine has renounced the Minsk agreements.

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es.news-front.info (Archived)
  • Reported in: Issue 242
  • DATE OF PUBLICATION: 09/04/2021
  • Article language(s) Spanish
  • Countries and/or Regions discussed in the disinformation: EU, US, Russia, Ukraine
  • Keywords: Donbas, War in Ukraine, Ukrainian statehood, Ukrainian disintegration
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Disinfo: Kyiv is hysterical and has practically declared war on Moscow with Washington's encouragement

Washington is implicating Kyiv in a war against Russia that it is unlikely to involve itself in, despite the loud statements.

In Europe, they are loudly talking of an impending war, for the first time since the war in Yugoslavia. The aggravation of the situation in Donbas, the hysteria of Kyiv, which has practically declared war on Moscow, and the US declarations that it will "not leave Ukraine" alone in its confrontation with Russia, prompt a serious consideration of military options to solve the Donbas conflict.

Apr 08, 2021
Disproof

This disinformation claim combines a few pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives about the war in Ukraine.

First is that Ukraine is the aggressor in the conflict in Donbas and that Russia is never the aggressor. There is irrefutable evidence of direct Russian military involvement in Donbas. Since 2014, Russia has been actively involved in violating Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity by financially and militarily backing the separation of Donetsk and Luhansk. An InformNapalm study shows that thirty-one weapons systems found in the Donbas entered service with the Russian military between 2004 and 2015 and have never been produced in, or sold to, Ukraine. In 2015, Russian President Vladimir Putin admitted Russia's military presence in Ukraine.

Disinfo: Russia to intervene in Donbas if Ukraine boosts conflict

A ramping-up of the conflict would lead to the end of Ukraine, with the Kremlin forced to stand up for its citizens living on the territory of Donbas. In recent years, Moscow has made it much simpler for those living in Ukraine to get a Russian passport, and many have taken up the offer. Everything depends on what the scale of fighting will be. If there is, as Putin says, a Srebrenica, Russia will be forced to stand up for its citizens.

Apr 08, 2021
Disproof

This is a reappearing disinformation message accompanying the current Russia’s military build-up near borders of Ukraine and on occupied Crimea.

Russia will be forced to intervene to defend its citizens if Ukraine launches an offensive in Donbas, according to a recent statement by Dmitry Kozak, Vladimir Putin’s deputy chief of staff. These words echo a 2019 statement by Putin, in which he compared this possibility with a massacre similar to that in Srebrenica in 1995. Bosnian Serb troops killed 8,000 Muslim men and boys back then in what is considered to be the worst massacre in Europe since World War II. Putin said that if Ukraine got control of the border between its breakaway region and Russia, local residents might be persecuted because they had been offered no security guarantees. The Russian may have forgotten, or ignores, the fact that Russia was the only member of the UN Security Council to veto the resolution in 2015 that would have described the Srebrenica massacre as "genocide".

Disinfo: EU made a mistake abandoning Sputnik-V

The European Union made a mistake in its assessment of abandoning the Russian vaccine, "Sputnik V". European countries dealt coldly with the importance of the Russian vaccine and were not enthusiastic about it because it is Russian, without taking into account the laboratory results and this also applies to the Norwegian government.

Apr 08, 2021
Disproof

Recurrent pro-Kremlin echoed disinformation about the EU, vaccination and the current EMA rolling review of Sputnik V, trying to link the Sputnik V authorisation process to Russophobia.

From 4 March 2021, Sputnik V vaccine is under the rolling review of the European Medicines Agency, and the decision will be fully decided on a scientific not a political basis.