DISINFO: Ukraine launched a military operation against Donetsk and Luhansk
SUMMARY
In April 2014, the Ukrainian authorities launched a military operation against the residents of the Donetsk and Luhansk republics, which declared their independence unilaterally, as an expression of their opposition to the coup in Ukraine in February of the same year. According to the latest United Nations statistics, the number of victims of the conflict has exceeded 13,000 civilians.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the war in Ukraine, aiming to portray the conflict as a Ukrainian civil war.
The war in eastern Ukraine is not a civil conflict, but a well-documented act of aggression by Russian armed forces, ongoing since February 2014.
Moreover, there was no coup d'etat in Ukraine. The spontaneous onset of the Euromaidan protests was an organic reaction by numerous parts 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.
See further the claim that Russia is not a part of the conflict in Ukraine.