Putin Renewed Main Disinformation Mantra – Ukraine Started the War, Russia is Fighting for Peace

Speaking on two separate events in Saint Petersburg, Russian President Vladimir Putin renewed the main disinformation mantra spread by Moscow to justify its aggression on Ukraine that started on 24.02.2022: Ukrainians are to be blamed for the war because genocide of Russian population in Donbas is ongoing since the coup in 2014. Russia had no choice but to initiate “a special military operation” for securing peace. Not a word was uttered about Russian annexation of Crimea that same 2014, as well as many other details that were not favourable for Russian politics

 

 

When the Russian invasion of Ukraine started in February 2022, the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, addressed the public with a speech full of shocking messages explaining why Russian divisions and brigades were going from several directions into the interior of Ukraine and why capturing Kyiv in a few days seemed most dangerous at the time. Then, in his speech, Putin stressed that:

Upon the request of the people of Donetsk and Lugansk – who have been victims of genocide for eight years by the Kyiv regime – I ordered a special military operation. We will strive toward demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine and bringing to justice all those responsible for bloodshed of peaceful inhabitants, including citizens of the Russian Federation.

Something less than a year later, President Putin repeated that main disinformation mantra of Moscow, speaking on two separate events in Saint Petersburg on 18^th January. First he addressed military veterans upon the occasion of breaking through the siege of former Leningrad in the Second World War, and then he addressed the employees of the enormous compound for manufacturing anti-aircraft weaponry and missiles ”Obukhov”. A mix of the addresses can be viewed on the YouTube video placed by several sources, while the most important parts of the speech were also reported by the agencies in the Macedonian media sphere.

 

What Russia is doing is warfare for peace!?

Without mentioning unfavourable details, Putin said that Russia had no choice but to do what it did on 24.02.2022, because the war in Donbas was going on since 2014:

The tragedy related to the Ukrainian events started with the anti-Constitutional and anti-Governmental armed coup in 2014. All we are doing today, including the special operation, as I have said many times, is an attempt to put an end to that war. That is the significance of the special military operation… and to protect our people living there – said Putin (see after 0.30 min. on the video).

Putin spread another piece of disinformation by claiming that Russia was lied to and ridiculed – as he put it – in relations to Donbas:

We’ve been suffering a long time; we have been trying to come up with an agreement for a long time. As things are at the moment, they were pulling our leg, they were making fools out of us. This is not the first time something like this is happening to us. Nevertheless, we did everything to normalize the situation peacefully. Now it became obvious that such a thing, by definition, is impossible said Putin on the meeting with the veterans from the Second World War upon the occasion of marking 80 years of breaking the siege of Leningrad.

What President Putin did not say was that oil on the fire and undermining the Minsk Agreements was added by Russia with the annexation of Crimea back in February 2014. According to international law and previous bilateral agreements between Kyiv and Moscow dating back to Soviet times, the peninsula was part of Ukraine. Referendum for separation of Crimea took place in March that same year and later on the accession within the Russian Federation, which was never recognized by the UN, nor by the USA, EU and OSCE. But that meant nothing to Kremlin.

Neither did the ongoing support for para-military formations in Donbas all the while since 2014 mean anything, when the tensions started following the coup in Kyiv and the fleeing from Ukraine by the former President, Viktor Yanukovych.

 

Again about “Banderists” and Ukrainian “Neo-Nazis”

During the visit of Saint Petersburg, Putin did not forget the narrative from February 2022 about Russia wanting denazification of Ukraine because Kyiv was run by “Banderists” and “Neo-Nazis”.

We are very sincere when we talk about the fight against neo-Nazis. Now, Bandera – who collaborated with Hitler and killed peaceful population i.e., killed civilians – was glorified (by Kyiv) as a national hero in Ukraine. How is it possible to explain this? And everyone is pretending that they do not notice anything. But that is the case – stated Putin in his address to the employees of the military factory (see from 2:22 min. in the video).

However, Putin does not even mention that the personality of Stepan Bandera, controversial Ukrainian politician from the period before the Second World War, is still controversial in Ukraine itself. There is no uniformed stance toward him, nor do Ukrainians have a unified opinion. Even today, he is a hero for some and a traitor for others. Russia, however, since 2014, by associating contemporary national symbols of Ukraine with those from the time of Bandera is negatively perceiving the whole Ukraine and its people. This was one of the main disinformation narratives explained in the analysis of “Truthmeter” in October 2022.

Putin’s speech to the employees of “Obukhov” was enriched with an analysis that Russia itself produced more anti-aircraft missiles than the whole Western military industry and that many things depended on its performance. Talking to the veterans, he concluded that the victory of Russia over Ukraine was inevitable.

 

---

This article has been produced within the project Fact-Checking the Progress of North Macedonia towards the EU, implemented by the Metamorphosis Foundation. The article, originally published by Truthmeter,, is made possible by the support of the American non-profit foundation NED (National Endowment for Democracy). The content of this article is the responsibility of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Metamorphosis, NED or their partners.

---

 

 

 

All comments and remarks regarding this and other Vistinomer articles, correction and clarification requests as well as suggestions for fact-checking politicians’ statements and political parties’ promises can be submitted by using this form