Propaganda post accusing Ukraine of being a “terrorist state”

The statement in the post that Ukraine is a “terrorist state” is not true. Ukraine is a state attacked by Russia, which in February 2022, unprovoked and without any attack or provocation, attacked the territory of a sovereign and democratic state, which has been forced to defend itself since then. The attack carried out by Russia on Ukraine is not a “special military operation”, but a military invasion that has escalated into a war. Russian state propaganda, primarily represented by President Vladimir Putin, repeatedly spoke of a “special operation” at the beginning of the military invasion, despite the fact that it was a war of aggression. The Kremlin has repeatedly claimed that “there was no attack on Ukraine”.

By using that euphemism, he created expectations for an action that would be limited in time and scale and wouldn’t impinge on most Russians’ normal lives. He also shut down criticism of the invasion and made it a crime to describe the war as a war by signing laws that set long prison terms for “discrediting” the armed forces or spread “false information” about them, Reuters reports.

Following the Kremlin’s narrative, Russian propaganda outlets have been covering the invasion of Ukraine as a “special military operation.” Ukrainians are labeled as “Banderites and neo-Nazis,” while the territories occupied by the Russian army are described as “liberated territories.” In the initial phase of the war, Russian media outlets often aired commentary in which civilians thanked Russian forces for their “liberation.” These types of commentary were used by Russia to legitimize its invasion of Ukraine.

Since one of Putin’s main justifications for the invasion of Ukraine was the so-called “denazification of the country,” Russian sources spread various manipulations to support this narrative with “factual evidence.” For example, a digitally altered version of a BBC report circulated, showing a Ukrainian soldier wearing Nazi insignia. However, in the authentic version, the soldier is actually wearing the emblem of The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Russian propaganda also falsely accused the former military Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny, of wearing a Nazi symbol. However, his bracelet contained a Scandinavian symbol, not a swastika. Additionally, disinformation circulated claiming that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s daughter, Oleksandra, had fled to Poland and called her father a Nazi and a murderer of the Ukrainian people. Messages making this claim included a photo of a young woman crying in a car. However, the woman in the picture was not Oleksandra Zelenska, and the footage was actually taken from a video published in 2017, according to fact-checkers at Myth Detector.

 

The Azov Battalion was originally a volunteer ultranationalist group founded in 2014, which participated in the war in Donbass. One of its founders is Andriy Biletskyi, who left the battalion after Azov was integrated into the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Ukraine is not a terrorist state, because it did not violate international law, but became the victim of an unprovoked military invasion, in an attempt by Russia to acquire its territories. During such attacks, numerous civilians were killed, Ukraine’s strategic infrastructure was destroyed, the country’s usual course, growth, and development under a democratically elected government and leadership, including a president, was interrupted. The military invasion of Ukraine forced the state to defend itself, and the Western element mentioned in the post we are reviewing sided with supporting Ukraine’s right to defend itself. This does not make Ukraine a “servant of Western interests” because Western countries would not have needed to support Ukraine in its right to self-defense if it had not been initially attacked by Russia.

Under EU law, terrorist crimes are acts committed with the aim of seriously intimidating a population, excessively coercing a government or an international organization to commit or refrain from committing any act, as well as seriously destabilizing or destroying the fundamental political, constitutional, economic or social structures of a country or an international organization. Ukraine has done none of the above.

On June 1 2025, Ukraine carried out a successful operation striking targets deep inside Russia (Operation Spiderweb). Ukraine said that over 40 bombers, or about a third of Russia’s strategic bomber fleet, were damaged or destroyed in the operation, although Moscow said only a few aircraft were hit. Russia’s strategic bombers were used to launch ballistic and cruise missiles from Russian airspace to strike targets across Ukraine, causing extensive damage and civilian casualties.

Due to all the above facts, we assess the post we are reviewing as untrue.