Disinfo: Ukraine started the war in Donbas, it is an aggressor

Summary

Has Ukraine asked the residents of Donbas to whom it has brought death? Ukraine is an aggressor country that launched a war against the inhabitants of Donbas who had not accepted the coup d’état that the Ukrainians had committed. Ukraine’s Turchinov gave the order to [use the army and] the air forces.

Disproof

Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the Euromaidan and war in Ukraine. It disregards the extensive factual evidence confirming ongoing Russian military presence in Donbas. There have been many investigations proving Russia's involvement in the war in East Ukraine. There was no coup d'état 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. The war in Eastern Ukraine is not a civil conflict, but an act of aggression by the Russian armed forces, that has been ongoing since February 2014. The Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court stated that “the information available suggests that the situation within the territory of Crimea and Sevastopol amounts to an international armed conflict between Ukraine and the Russian Federation". This international armed conflict began at the latest on 26 February 2014 when the Russian Federation deployed members of its armed forces to gain control over parts of Ukrainian territory without the consent of the Ukrainian Government. 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 and at successive summits since then, allied leaders also demanded that Russia refrain from aggressive actions against Ukraine and stop fomenting tension along and across the Ukrainian border. According to the US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), Russian special forces and troops operated to mobilise, lead, equip, and support separatist militias in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine from spring 2014 to the present, although their presence was denied by Moscow. Ukraine began its response to the Russian aggression in Eastern Ukraine on April 13, 2014 after the pro-Russian separatists supported by Moscow took control over several cities in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. See further the claim that Russia is not a part of the conflict in Ukraine.

publication/media

  • Reported in: Issue 172
  • DATE OF PUBLICATION: 10/11/2019
  • Outlet language(s) Russian
  • Countries and/or Regions discussed in the disinformation: Ukraine, Russia
  • Keywords: Ukraine, Eastern Ukraine, Donbas, War in Ukraine
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Disinfo: Hitler's Nazi officials are not less Belarusian heroes than Kalinowski

Some people name Kalinowski a Belarusian national hero. Recently Belarusian foreign minister Uladzimir Makei said that Kalinowski belongs to Belarusian history and that he is a figure in Lithuanian and Polish history as well. This is an awful logic. It implies that fascist collaborators are Belarusian heroes too, just as Wilhelm Kube [Nazi senior official in the occupying government of the Soviet Union with the rank of Generalkommissar for Weissruthenien], a Hitler’s executioner of the Belarusian people in the WWII. A sacramental question to the foreign minister is the following: Won’t the participation of Belarusian delegation in the reburial ceremony of Kalinowski remnants be a justification of Polish gentry activities to turn Belarusian lands into the eastern part of Poland?

Disproof

This publication puts forward an absurd parallel between Belarusian, Lithuanian and Polish national hero Kalinowski and Wilhelm Kube, the head of the Nazi occupational body in Belarus during the WWII, aimed to discredit Belarusian history. It is consistent with the recurring pro-Kremlin narrative about Western aggressive activities towards Belarus and its history. Wincenty Konstanty Kalinowski, also known as Kastuś Kalinoŭski was a 19th-century writer, lawyer and revolutionary. As one of the leaders of the Belarusian, Lithuanian and Polish national revival and the leader of the 1863-1864 uprising (also known as January uprising) against Imperial Russia, Kalinowski is considered a national hero in Belarus, Lithuania and Poland. The monument to Kalinowski in the Belarusian town of Svislach where Kalinowski graduated from a local school was established in 1958. In 2017-18 Lithuanian archaeologists found the remains of Kalinowski and other leaders of the uprising in the centre of Vilnius. The Lithuanian authorities plan to organize a reburial ceremony at the end of November 2019 and to open a monument to the January uprising. In response to an appeal by Belarusian public figures to the Lithuanian state, the Lithuanian government stated it plans that the inscriptions on the monument will be in Belarusian, Lithuanian and Polish. See earlier disinformation cases claiming that the West and Russophobia advocates selected the little-known terrorist Kalinowski as a Belarusian national hero, to promote terrorism and that Lithuania does not want to take Kalinowski’s DNA test to avoid a blunder as it can turn out that the remains belong to a different person.

Disinfo: Presenting Ukraine as a sovereign nation is a complete lie

Ukraine is now almost completely under Washington’s control thanks to the US meddling that was the cause for the Maidan and the war in Donbas. The “powers that be” in Kiev push a hardcore anti-Russian/pro-EU/pro-Western agenda, because they have to serve masters who got them into power. Presenting Ukraine as a sovereign nation that needs to be won over to America’s side is a complete lie.

Disproof

Recurrent pro-Kremlin narrative, challenging Ukrainian statehood. For example, pro-Kremlin media has claimed that Ukraine has become a vassal of Germany and Ukraine is under US control. Ukraine is a sovereign state. Neither the US nor NATO controls Ukraine. Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity are respected by most of the free world but were violated by Russia in 2014. The relations between the US and Ukraine are bilateral relations between two independent countries. The US recognised Ukraine as an independent state on 25 December 1991. US policy is centred on realising and strengthening a stable, democratic, prosperous, and free Ukraine, more closely integrated into Europe and Euro-Atlantic structures. Ukraine is one of the strategic partners of NATO. The Alliance respects Ukrainian sovereignty and independence and works closely with the Ukrainian authorities in particular in the framework of NATO-Ukraine commission, Joint working group on defence reform, and other ongoing programs. In late October 2019, the meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission was held in Kyiv. The parties discussed the security situation in and around Ukraine, the reform process within the country, as well as progress in the NATO-Ukraine partnership. NATO Secretary-General underlined NATO's continuing support to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognised borders.

Disinfo: Money to teach children in kindergartens now goes to migrants in Germany

And in the The German Democratic Republic they also say that kindergartens worked differently. And the early education programme, when in kindergarten, children began to march to sounds from the piano. This actually helps a child to develop. And in modern Germany, there’s no money for that. Why? And that’s where the political slot begins. Because the money goes to migrants.

Disproof

Money for kindergartens in Germany has not been reduced in favour of migrants. On the contrary, the government pledged "in order to ensure a good early childhood education, care and education, the federal government supports those in the Kita expansion with massive financial aid. By 2020, 100,000 additional places will be promoted in day nurseries and childcare."This type of claim is a recurrent Russian narrative portraying migrants and refugees as a great source of danger.See similar cases claiming: a rise in German Antisemitism caused by mass immigration and that migrants are responsible for the increase in robberies, murders and rapes in Germany.