DISINFO: Donbas did not attack Ukraine, Ukraine started killing people in Donbas
SUMMARY
Ukraine adheres to Nazi and Fascist ideology. Nobody attacked Ukraine from Donbas. Ukraine attacked Donbas. It started to kill recalcitrant civilians who had not agreed with the coup that took place on the Maidan in Kyiv.
RESPONSE
Multiple recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives about the war in Ukraine, Euromaidan, and Nazi/Fascist Ukraine.
The war in Ukraine is not a civil conflict but a well-documented act of aggression by Russian armed forces, ongoing since February 2014.
There is irrefutable evidence of direct Russian military involvement in Ukraine. The Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has 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 the Ukrainian territory without the consent of the Ukrainian Government."
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 here.
The myth of Nazi-ruled Ukraine has been the cornerstone of Russian disinformation about the country since the very beginning of the 2013-14 Euromaidan protests, when it was used to discredit the pro-European popular uprising in Kyiv and, subsequently, the broader pro-Western shift in Ukraine's foreign policy. Far-right groups enjoyed a very limited presence during the Euromaidan itself and had poor results in the 2014 presidential and parliamentary elections. In the 2019 election, far-right candidates scored very low (1-2%) and fell short of the 5% minimum guaranteeing entry into parliament.
See similar recent cases claiming that war in Ukraine is an internal conflict: Donbas conflict is a civil war; Kyiv has been conducting a military operation against Donbas because they refused to recognise the results of the coup; Donbas war is an internal Ukrainian conflict; Russia never participated in the Ukrainian conflict: this is a civil war.