May the expulsion of the Russian diplomats [from Czechia] be connected to the construction of a new energy block at the Dukovany Nuclear Power Plant? The [Czech] opposition and secret services stand against the participation of the Russian company “Rosatom” in this tender. This situation is an attempt to kill two birds with one stone, discrediting both the supplier of the Sputnik V vaccine and the “Rosatom”. That is why the anti-Russian campaign is being revived in order to reach these goals. Such developments as the Skripal poisoning and the Malaysian Boeing have one thing in common – neither of them was investigated and the sanctions were introduced with the violation of all principles of the civilized world. Unfortunately, we have become a part of a barbaric world.
Russia emphasises the internal political character of the Donbas conflict and points to its origins in the unconstitutional coup d'état in Kyiv and the subsequent installation of a nationalist regime.
Two interconnected recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives are used in this piece. One about the war in Ukraine, claiming that Russia is not part of the conflict in Donbas, that Russia has nothing to do with the war in eastern Ukraine and presenting the conflict as a “civil war”, a war against its own people in Donbas. The other is about an alleged anti-constitutional coup in Ukraine in 2014; this is a longstanding pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about Ukraine's Euromaidan protests.
The spontaneous onset of the Euromaidan protests was a reaction from several segments of the Ukrainian population to former President Yanukovych’s sudden departure from the promised Association Agreement with the European Union in November 2013, after pressure from Russia. See the full debunk: The Western-backed coup in Ukraine has torn the country asunder.
As for Russia's ‘role within the war in Ukraine, the European Union stated in July 2014 that "arms and fighters continue flowing into Ukraine from the Russian Federation". At the NATO Summit in Wales in September 2014, NATO leaders condemned in the strongest terms Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine and demanded Russia to stop and withdraw its forces from Ukraine and from the country’s border. NATO leaders also demanded Russia comply with international law and its international obligations and responsibilities; refrain from aggressive actions against Ukraine; halt the flow of weapons, equipment, people and money across the border to the separatists; and stop fomenting tension along and across the Ukrainian border.
In 2015, Russian President Vladimir Putin admitted Russia's military presence in Ukraine.
See similar disinformation cases alleging that in 2014 coup Kyiv government carried out a war against its own people, Donbas rebelled because Russians in Ukraine were subjected to ethnocide, that after Euromaidan Ukraine lost its sovereignty and is falling apart, that the Euromaidan coup led to civil war in Donbas, or that Ukraine committed a crime by attacking its citizens in Donbas in 2014.