Ukrainians are not fighting for other people’s interests and they are not NATO cannon fodder

The post manipulates and misinforms by promoting well-known Russian disinformation in order to justify the Russian invasion of Ukraine and present Russia as some kind of victim. In doing so, the post manipulates that Ukrainians fought for NATO interests and are cannon fodder for NATO, without considering the facts that speak otherwise. Ukraine is an independent and sovereign state that has the right to defend itself from Russian aggression, and NATO is helping it by sending weapons and financial support

 

We analyze a Facebook post that says:

CANNON FODDER FOR NATO INTERESTS

The Ukrainian people – hostage to Zelensky’s neo-fascist regime

In the shadow of Western propaganda and under the umbrella of NATO, the neo-fascist government in Kyiv is massively forcibly mobilizing thousands of ordinary people – without military training, without choice, without dignity. Taken from the streets, sent to the front where they often don’t even survive three days. For them, there is no state, no monument, no return. Only trenches and mass graves.

While the poor die, the rich “emigrate.” The beaches of Greece, Croatia, and Montenegro are filled with privileged Ukrainians – while the peasant, the worker, and the student die like artillery fodder.

The government in Kyiv is sacrificing its people for other people’s interests.

 Ukraine must not be a training ground for NATO.

 The Ukrainian people must not be cannon fodder.

The post presents several disinformation narratives that are well-known pro-Kremlin narratives that Russia has been spreading since the beginning of its military invasion of Ukraine in order to justify the war, presenting itself as a victim, not an aggressor.

 

The government in Ukraine is not fascist

First, the government in Ukraine is not a neo-fascist Zelensky regime, as the post claims.

The current Ukrainian government is not fascist, nor dictatorial, nor in any way connected to the Nazi past. President Volodymyr Zelensky was democratically elected in fair elections, receiving 73 percent of the vote in the 2019 presidential election.

There are right-wing extremist forces in Ukraine, but they are weak compared to other European countries. In the last elections, the far-right United Front won only 2.15 percent of the vote.

Ukraine is a country where millions of people died fighting Nazism in World War II. Nazi ideology is banned there, but the Kremlin persistently pushes the narrative that Ukraine is Nazi. The EUvsDisinfo database contains almost 500 examples of pro-Kremlin disinformation claims about “Nazi/fascist Ukraine.”

The story of alleged Nazism in Ukraine has its roots in World War II and the then Ukrainian opposition politician Stepan Bandera, as well as the initial enthusiasm for the entry of German troops among some Ukrainians living in the Galicia region. However, the German administration very quickly showed that its intention was purely the occupation of Ukraine, which until then had been part of the Soviet Union (USSR).

Historian Jeffrey Veidlinger,  former director of the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies and the Borns Jewish Studies Program at Indiana University, said for Time:

At one point, there were some Ukrainians who collaborated with Nazis. This is why Putin can use that term, because it has resonance and people are familiar with this history of Ukraine having sympathies with the Nazis, but this was 80 years ago, and isn’t reflective of the current Ukrainian Government…It’s a meaningless term when Putin uses it. He’s not afraid of Nazis in Ukraine. He’s afraid of democracy in Ukraine. And he recognizes that as democracy encroaches upon Russia as it comes closer to Russia, there’s a threat that those people will demand democracy

As a reminder, Ukraine banned the promotion of Nazism in 2015. Truthmeter.mk recently debunked attempts to portray the EU as fascist.

 

Manipulations with mobilization in Ukraine

The post also shares a video showing two uniformed men dragging a young man, carrying him out of his home, and putting him in a van.

We searched for the video on Google and were only able to find it in posts on Russian websites. For example, RIA Novosti reported that the video shows a forced mobilization in Lviv, Ukraine. The video is also available on the Telegram channel of Strana.ua.

The Ukrainian publication “Strana.ua” showed footage from the mobilization of forces in Lviv, in which a dog tries to prevent employees of the military registration and enlistment office from pushing its owner into a car, RIA Novosti writes, adding: 

Videos of the mobilization of the Ukrainian armed forces have been widely circulated online. In this footage, representatives of the Ukrainian military commissariats take men away in minibuses, often beating the detainees and using force against them.

 

On August 20, 2021, the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (NSDC) imposed personal sanctions against Igor Guzhva (owner of Strana.ua) and legal entities associated with Strana.ua, citing that he was spreading pro-Russian propaganda.

Truthmeter.mk has previously written a broader analysis of how Russia is trying to destroy mobilization in Ukraine through manipulation and disinformation.

On social networks in Macedonia, the topic of mobilization in Ukraine is accompanied by video materials that are sometimes untrue and aim to portray it as forced and violent. Numerous international organizations, as well as fact-checkers from Ukraine, agree that unreliable, staged video materials with paid actors have been created on the Internet, especially on Telegram, with one sole purpose–to undermine the mobilization in Ukraine and discredit the armed forces of Ukraine.

In the absence of independent information about the origin of the video in the post we are analyzing, and taking into account the facts presented in our analysis , we cannot confidently claim that it depicts a forced mobilization in Lviv, as Russian media outlets claim.

After more than three years of intense war with Russia, Ukraine is losing a large number of soldiers every day and is in dire need of additional forces on the front. In the first months of the war, there were a large number of volunteers. Over time, the number of people volunteering has dropped significantly, so the country has had to move to mandatory mobilization. Although Ukraine receives military and economic support from the EU, the US and NATO, they do not send their own soldiers. Тоа значи дека самите Украинци мораат да ја водат борбата на теренот. This means that Ukrainians themselves have to lead the fight on the ground. In 2024, over 50,000 cases of desertion were registered in Ukraine.

With all this in mind, a law passed in April 2024 lowered the age of mobilization from 27 to 25. Men are recruited into the armed forces through patrols, which often use physical force and coercion to round up men and send them to the front lines. Women are currently exempt from conscription.

Russia is directing its strategy towards destroying Ukrainian mobilization centers to cause panic and hinder the process.

Faced with a shortage of young volunteers, Ukraine offers financial incentives and benefits for contracts for 18–24-year-olds, but interest is still limited.

 

Ukraine acknowledges that there have been abuses within its conscription service, and President Zelensky has condemned them. Investigations and arrests are underway (notable examples: here and here). While some of these excesses have led to physical altercations, Russian disinformation efforts often exaggerate such incidents or even produce staged videos in occupied Ukrainian territories to make them appear more credible.

Ukraine is a victim of aggression, so like any state, it must defend itself, and the fact that citizens express dissatisfaction with how mobilization is being carried out does not mean that they are not in favor of defending their country.

Russia, on the other hand, has not declared war or martial law, but it certainly restricts the rights of citizens and has no justification for its mobilization, which is purely for an aggressive war, and waging such a war is prohibited even by Russian laws (Article 353). Putin, not Zelensky, is the champion of self-will, but in Russia this is not allowed to be discussed. Moreover, Russia is also forcibly mobilizing people from occupied territories, which is a war crime.

Read more on this topic here.

Ukrainians are not NATO cannon fodder

The announcement also spreads another familiar pro-Kremlin narrative– that the war in Ukraine is a NATO war and that Ukrainians are fighting and dying for the interests of the West, i.e. they are “NATO cannon fodder.”

This supports the pro-Kremlin disinformation that Russia is not to blame for the war in Ukraine, that the war was started by the EU and NATO, and that Russia is only defending itself. On February 24, 2022, Russian troops launched an attack on Ukraine ordered by President Putin, who announced a “special military operation” in the early hours of the morning, despite warnings from world leaders that the move could lead to the largest war in Europe since 1945.

The attack was preceded by Russian President Putin’s decision on February 21, 2022, to recognize the independence of the so-called People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, which have been under the control of pro-Russian separatists since 2014. This decision allowed Putin to directly send Russian military units to Eastern Ukraine, where sporadic clashes between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists were already underway.

Since the beginning of Russia’s aggressive military invasion of Ukraine, Kremlin propaganda has repeatedly attempted to distort the narrative, or rather to impose a series of justifications for its attacks. The truth is that it was Russia that carried out an unprovoked military invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

NATO condemns Russia’s brutal and unprovoked military aggression against Ukraine, an independent and democratic state and a close NATO partner. NATO and its allies support Ukraine in its indisputable right to self-defense. Military assistance includes weapons, equipment and financial assistance to the Ukrainian military. Humanitarian assistance includes medical, food and other items for civilians, while financial assistance comes in the form of grants, loans and guarantees.

The fact that NATO is helping Ukraine militarily (by sending weapons for defense) and financially does not mean that Ukrainians are fighting for NATO and that they are cannon fodder. Read more on this topic in the Truthmeter.mk analysis.

If Ukrainians are dying for NATO, as the post we are analyzing claims, can it then be said that Russians are dying for China, which provides them with dual-use equipment and technology–both military and civilian, sells them radar parts and even entire radars, and supports them in various ways. A CNBC investigation in September 2024 found that Chinese companies play a key role in strengthening Russia’s military capabilities, including through the trade in goods for use on the battlefield in Ukraine. A separate report in January found that China has become a key conduit for transferring critical Western technology to Russia.

There is also an alleged statement by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi stating that the continuation of the war in Ukraine is in China’s interest because it distracts the US from the Pacific and towards Europe.

Wang Yi, at a meeting with European Union representatives in Brussels on July 3, 2025, allegedly stated that:

China cannot afford to let Russia lose the war in Ukraine, because that would focus America on Europe instead of the Pacific.

He said the conflict served China’s strategic goal of distracting the United States and that this had proven to be a “blessing” for China.

Furthermore, just as the West is providing weapons and equipment to Ukraine, so are Iran and North Korea doing the same to Russia. North Korea sent 10-12,000 soldiers, entire units, and that was organized in North Korean uniforms with the support and orders of the regime there, something no Western country has done for Ukraine.

From all of the above, we can conclude that the post manipulates and misinforms, promoting well-known Russian disinformation in order to justify the Russian invasion of Ukraine and present Russia as some kind of victim. At the same time, the post manipulates that Ukrainians fought for NATO’s interests and are cannon fodder for NATO, without considering the facts that speak otherwise. Ukraine is an independent and sovereign state that has the right to defend itself from Russian aggression, and NATO helps it  by sending weapons and financial support

Therefore, we assess the post as untrue.

 

 

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