DISINFO: Historically, Russian troops entered Europe only in response to aggression
SUMMARY
It is astonishing to see a constant effort to portray Russia as some kind of monster ready to attack all of Europe tomorrow. Over the past 200 years, Europe has invaded Russian territory four times – during the Napoleonic Wars, the Crimean War, the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, and the Great Patriotic War. Russians have only entered Europe as a result of aggression against Russia. This appalling hypocrisy is characteristic of Russia’s (former Western) partners. It is important to make them aware of these historical facts.
RESPONSE
The claim that Russian troops have entered Europe only in response to aggression is not historically accurate. Russian troops intervened in Hungary at Austria's request to suppress the Hungarian Revolution of 1848–1849. The Red Army invaded and occupied partly or completely Finland, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia just before the Second World War. Soviet troops entered Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 to crush anti-Communist uprisings. These actions were not defensive but aimed at maintaining Soviet control over Eastern Europe within the Warsaw Pact.
Russian troops are still illegally present in Transnistria, which is an internationally recognised part of Moldova, under the pretext of protecting the Russian-speaking population there. Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 cutting the protection of its citizens in Southern Ossetia, which is an internationally recognised part of Georgia. Russia attacked Ukraine by illegally annexing the Crimean Peninsula in 2014. Moscow instigated a separatist revolt in parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk Regions in the East of Ukraine several months later, which has evolved into the into the ongoing unprovoked and unjustified full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russia justified this territorial expansion by claims of protecting Russian-speaking populations and countering NATO’s influence. These actions violated international law and have been condemned by the EU, the US and NATO.
Apart from Europe, Moscow has intervened in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Syria, parts of Africa, and some other territories throughout the world in the 20th and the 21st centuries. All these interventions and invasions have not been responses to direct aggression against Russia.
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