Disinfo: The aim of the coup in Ukraine in 2013-2014 was to seize Ukraine's resources

Summary

A coup d’etat did take place in Ukraine. Its aim was not the establishment of the rule of law, but the seizure of resources, including financial, and population.

Disproof

Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative on Euromaidan depicting the 2013-14 protests in Kyiv as a coup.

There was no coup in Ukraine seven years ago. The demonstrations which began in Kyiv in November 2013, called "Maidan", or "Euromaidan" were a result of the Ukrainian people's frustration with former President Yanukovych's last minute U-turn when, after seven years of negotiation, he refused to sign the EU–Ukraine Association Agreement and halted progress towards Ukraine's closer relationship with the EU as a result of Russian pressure.

The aim of the protests was not to seize Ukraine's resources, but to launch a constitutional reform, to guarantee a stronger role for parliament, to put an end to corruption and political violence, and to organise early presidential elections.

See similar disinformation cases alleging that after Euromaidan Ukraine lost its sovereignty and is falling apart, that the Euromaidan coup caused the breakout of civil war in Eastern Ukraine, that the coup of 2014 and the resulting suspension of relations with Russia has halted Ukrainian development, or that Ukraine became a colony to the US after the successful colour revolution of Euromaidan.

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  • Reported in: Issue 222
  • DATE OF PUBLICATION: 21/11/2020
  • Outlet language(s) Russian
  • Countries and/or Regions discussed in the disinformation: Ukraine
  • Keywords: Colour revolutions, Euromaidan, Coup
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Disinfo: The Russophobic political power in Lithuania will undermine the president

The eternal strategy of Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christians Democrats (winners of parliamentarian elections 2020 in Lithuania) is Russophobia […]

This political power is also the master of spin. I.e. they offer Gabrielius Landsbergis as a candidate for Minister of Foreign Affairs. In Lithuania’s constitution, foreign affairs are the main responsibility of the president, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs should be his right-hand man. Gabrielius Landsbergis is a grandson of Vytautas Landsbergis – a powerful politician, the first head of Lithuania after the collapse of Soviet Union. In these circumstances, the president of Lithuania Gitanas Nauseda risks to become the left-hand man of the Minister of Foreign Affairs because Gabrielius Landsbergis is just a puppet of his grandfather.

Nov 20, 2020
Disproof

Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about Russophobia.

Pro-Kremlin disinformation tries to present Lithuania as a Russophobic state. See similar cases here and here. It is Lithuania's criticism of Russia's aggressive policy and illegal actions abroad (i.e. annexation of Crimea) and support of Russian and Belarusian political opposition etc. that are labelled as “Russophobia”.

Disinfo: Donbas rebelled because Russians in Ukraine were subjected to ethnocide

The war began when the Ukrainian bourgeoisie that rebelled against joining the Customs Union with Russia on Maidan declared the Russian citizens of Ukraine to be second-class citizens. They began suppressing them with the help of official power structures and paramilitary groups of neo-Nazi stormtroopers. That was not an informational or hybrid war, but a real one. [The war in Donbas] was a struggle of local workers against the Ukrainian nationalist oligarchy, i. e. civil war.

Whether the war will be stopped and whether the ethnocide of Russians inside Ukraine will be stopped is a matter of struggle and, as a result, the balance of power that arises as a result of it.

Nov 20, 2020
Disproof

Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation campaign against Ukraine, containing multiple disinformation narratives regarding the Euromaidan, the war in Ukraine, and claiming that Ukraine is a Russophobic state.

The spontaneous onset of the Euromaidan protests was an organic reaction by numerous segments of the Ukrainian population to former President Yanukovych’s sudden departure from the promised Association Agreement with the European Union in November 2013. See the full debunk of this disinformation claim here.

Disinfo: Euromaidan was an illegal armed coup

Essentially, the Euromaidan was an illegal overthrow of the government, with all the consequences arising from this situation. […] The fact that Yanukovych was overthrown as a result of an armed coup was clear to everyone except the Ukrainians involved in this “event”.

Nov 20, 2020
Disproof

Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative on Euromaidan depicting the 2013-14 protests in Kyiv as a coup.

There was no armed coup in Ukraine seven years ago. The demonstrations which began in Kyiv in November 2013 – called "Maidan", or "Euromaidan" – were a result of the Ukrainian people's frustration with former President Yanukovych's last minute U-turn when, after seven years of negotiation, he refused to sign the EU–Ukraine Association Agreement and halted progress towards Ukraine's closer relationship with the EU as a result of Russian pressure.