DISINFO: Ukraine is a terrorist organisation and a Polish project
SUMMARY
Russia will not benefit from keeping a terrorist organisation called Ukraine in one form or another. For the past 160 years, the Polish project “Ukraine is not Russia” has invariably resulted in terror against Russian residents. Preservation of any territories named ‘independent Ukraine’ will be a guaranteed source of danger for Russia. The West hopes to delay Ukraine’s liquidation to harm the Russian civilisation for as long as possible.
RESPONSE
These are recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives aimed to discredit and undermine Ukrainian sovereignty and justify Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It is also an example of a big conspiracy which suggests that Ukrainian state and identity were artificially cultivated by Poland in the past as part of a grandiose anti-Russian strategy. Furthermore, the article falsely suggests that Ukraine mistreated the country's Russian-speaking population and thereby advances a pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the alleged genocide of ethnic Russians in Ukraine.
There is no evidence that ethnic Russians or Russian speakers were facing persecution at the hands of the Ukrainian authorities. This has been confirmed by reports issued by the Council of Europe, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the OSCE. The genocide narrative has been an integral part of the pro-Kremlin disinformation campaign aiming to justify the full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022.
The history of Ukraine dates back to the era of the Kyivan Rus in the 9th-13th centuries. Ukraine is a nation-state with a long history and its own identity, despite foreign rule for long periods of time. Nowadays, Ukraine is defending itself, its territorial integrity, national self-identity and sovereignty against Russia's unprovoked aggression which hits civilian targets.
Claims that Ukraine does not exist as a "real" state are among principal pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives used to legitimise Moscow's campaign of annihilation of the Ukrainian state and identity.
The claim of a proxy war against Russia through Ukraine is a classic but false Kremlin claim. Russia launched unprovoked aggression culminating in its February 2022 full-scale invasion of the country, for which Ukraine receives international support, including from the US, UK and many EU countries, for its self-defence in line with Article 51 of the UN Charter.
See earlier similar disinformation cases claiming that Ukraine’s statehood is legal nonsense, that Ukraine did not, does not and will not exist, that Ukraine does not exist as an independent state, and that Ukraine was invented in the XIX century as an anti-Russian tool.