DISINFO: The war against Donbas people is waged by successors of the Hitlerites
DISINFORMATION CASE DETAILS
  • Outlet: sputnik.by ( archived) *
  • Date of publication: October 09, 2019
  • Outlet language(s): Russian
  • Countries / regions discussed: Ukraine, Russia

DISINFO: The war against Donbas people is waged by successors of the Hitlerites

SUMMARY

The claim that Ukraine is in a state of war with Russia is absurd. This is a civil war which was provoked by a coup d’état. Ukrainian state officials promised to kill everyone in Donbas and to drop a nuclear bomb on them. This is a conflict between one part of the Ukrainian people who consider themselves part of Russian civilization and the aggressive one, supported by the West. This other side wants to tear Ukraine away from Russian World and to turn it into the buffer area between the EU and NATO, on the one hand, and Russia, on the other. This side of the conflict includes the darkest forces, successors and accomplices of the Hitlerites. The Donbas people are the successors of the winners over Nazism, while the war is being waged by those on the other side who consider themselves successors of fascist accomplices. How can Donbas people be reunited with the rest of Ukraine where flagrant Nazi gangs organize their marches and praise the murderers?

RESPONSE

This publication is a mix of groundless generalization, conspiracy theories and manipulations, which follow recurring pro-Kremlin narratives about 2014 Ukraine's coup d'état, and Fascist / Nazi Ukraine. It is aimed to legitimize Russia-backed armed forces in Donbas and to demonize Ukrainian authorities by painting them as successors of the Hitlerites.

It also seriously misrepresents the ongoing acts of aggression by the Russian armed forces in Ukraine referring to alleged Ukrainian authorities' plans to exterminate the Donbas people including by dropping a nuclear bomb on them. Ukraine has no nuclear bombs. After signing the Budapest Memorandum Ukraine removed all nuclear weapons from its soil in exchange for assurances that Russia would respect its sovereignty. Russia's aggressive actions in eastern Ukraine are well-established and thoroughly documented.

See earlier disinformation cases alleging that Ukrainian parliamentarians demanded to drop a nuclear bomb on Donbas people and that the Donbas people faced a threat of a Russophobic genocide.

Last but not least, there was no coup d’état in Ukraine in 2014. The spontaneous onset of the Euromaidan protests was a reaction by numerous segments of the Ukrainian population to former President Yanukovych’s violent dispersal of peaceful student protests against Yanukovych's sudden decision to withdraw from the Association Agreement with the European Union in November 2013. See the full debunk here. See our earlier analyses of Ukraine-related disinformation and propaganda campaign: Denigrating Ukraine With Disinformation, and Ukraine Under Information Fire.

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Disclaimer

Cases in the EUvsDisinfo database focus on messages in the international information space that are identified as providing a partial, distorted, or false depiction of reality and spread key pro-Kremlin messages. This does not necessarily imply, however, that a given outlet is linked to the Kremlin or editorially pro-Kremlin, or that it has intentionally sought to disinform. EUvsDisinfo publications do not represent an official EU position, as the information and opinions expressed are based on media reporting and analysis of the East Stratcom Task Force.

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