DISINFO: The West aims to destabilise Russia using its historic territories
DISINFORMATION CASE DETAILS
  • Outlet: bgr.news-front.info (archived)*
  • Date of publication: July 24, 2021
  • Article language(s): Bulgarian
  • Reported in: Issue 255
  • Countries / regions discussed: Russia, Ukraine
Tags:
Ukrainian statehood War in Ukraine Eastern Ukraine West Orthodox Church

DISINFO: The West aims to destabilise Russia using its historic territories

SUMMARY

Russia will not allow its historic territories to be used against it. The Ukrainian people still have the chance to protect themselves from the Western puppet masters, who orchestrated the tragic fraternal war in the Donbas. Ukrainians should rely on Orthodox Christianity, a primary weapon yet to be destroyed by the Western curators. Currently, however, the Americans control the whole political system in Ukraine and are removing all other foreign influences.

RESPONSE

A recurrent disinformation narrative denying Ukraine’s statehood and misrepresenting Ukraine as being externally controlled by the West. The article serves to undermine confidence in Ukraine’s sovereignty and paint Western states as aggressors, while falsely presenting Russia’s aggressive policies against Ukraine as defensive and justified.

The origins of the war are traced back to the Euromaidan protest movement, also known as the Revolution of Dignity. It started with mass protests in Kyiv against then-President Yanukovych’s decision in November 2013 to abandon the association agreement with the EU in favour of trade ties with Russia.

In stark contrast, there is overwhelming evidence that Russia is directly and unlawfully involved in the war in Ukraine and that it has been actively threatening Ukraine’s territorial integrity since 2014. And yet the Kremlin continues to deny that it is a party to the conflict. Moreover, the Kremlin has not shown any willingness to stop directly interfering in Ukraine’s internal affairs.

There is no evidence that Ukrainian politics are controlled by the West. In support of its self-defence, Ukraine receives indirect support from Western states and organisations in a fully transparent and legal manner. In contradiction to the claims that the West has aggressive intentions, the EU, the US, and NATO have repeatedly stressed their opposition to further escalations and the need for a diplomatic solution implementing the Minsk Agreement. Detailed and accurate overviews of cooperation between Ukraine and NATO, the EU and the US are available online.

The notion that the West wishes to destroy (or control) Orthodox Christianity is a recurrent disinformation narrative. Additionally, the claim that Ukrainians should rely on Orthodox Christianity directly contradicts systematic attempts by Kremlin and Kremlin-controlled media to undermine the independence of the Ukrainian Orthodox church. Thus, Pro-Kremlin media use Ukrainian Orthodoxy in a manipulative and self-contradicting manner. Depending on the needs, it is presented as an important cultural cornerstone that unites Russia and Ukraine, or a Russophobic project that is at the heart of the supposedly artificial nation of Ukraine. The Kremlin often uses Orthodox Christianity as a tool of disinformation and of political (de)legitimization inside and outside Russia.

Read similar cases of disinformation in the database claiming that military absorption of Ukraine by the West threatens Russia, that the 2014 revolution in Ukraine was a plot by the West to establish control over Ukraine, that Ukraine is under obvious external control, that the West created Ukraine to wage war on Russian civilization and that the establishment of external control by the West was the real goal of the 2014 revolution in Ukraine.

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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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