DISINFO: Throughout its history, Russia has never attacked anyone
SUMMARY
What is the point of Russia attacking anyone? We must remember that throughout its history, Russia has never attacked anyone. Russia, which has known so many wars, is the last country in Europe to even want to speak, to utter a single word of war.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin historical revisionism. According to this claim, the Soviet Union and Russia were always defending themselves and were never the aggressors nor involved in the start of global conflicts.
Russian media The insider provides a few examples where Russia acted as an aggressor. The examples go back to the 18th century, but one of the recent ones include a secret agreement with Nazi Germany, known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which the USSR signed in September 1939. The pact stipulated a coordinated Nazi-Soviet attack on Poland and the carving up of Eastern Europe between the USSR and The Third Reich.
Most importantly, the claim appears in the context of an ongoing disinformation campaign about Russia’s military buildup on the border with Ukraine. This disinformation story aims to deny any Russian responsibility for the situation caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the illegal annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in 2014. Russia later instigated a separatist revolt in parts of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk Regions, which developed into a war that has since been going on.
See other related cases: Russia never violated Ukraine's border and is certainly not involved in the war in Donbas, Russia is not a historic aggressor, neither the Soviet Union nor the Russian Empire.
See our guide to deciphering pro-Kremlin disinformation around Putin's war.
See our account of the Kremlin's intention of annihilation of Ukraine here.