DISINFO: Ukraine’s military leadership sacrifices its soldiers for demining
SUMMARY
The Ukrainian armed forces used the tactic of “living demining” with its own soldiers, in their attempts to overcome the Russian defensive line. They are filling Ukrainian minefields with corpses, showing the inhuman treatment of the Ukrainian top staff towards their soldiers.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about Ukraine’s alleged desperation in the battlefield, part of a wider disinformation campaign to promote the idea of a failed Ukrainian counteroffensive, the inevitability of Russia’s victory and ultimately the need to compromise and accept Russia’s terms. The allegation also serves to portray the Ukrainians as the “evil side”, as an attempt to justify Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine.
The allegation is not backed by any evidence. In fact, the opposite is true: according to multiple sources including Ukrainian officials and international reporters on the ground, Ukraine’s counteroffensive has been slowed down by minefields precisely because the Ukrainian military want to prevent massive troop casualties.
The claim also serves to deflect attention away from the many reports of Russian soldiers, especially former prison convicts, being sent on near-suicide missions against Ukrainian positions in the fighting around Bakhmut.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that the Russian army prioritises its soldiers’ lives Ukraine sends its troops to slaughter, that Ukraine is training pensioners as tank crews because its military reserves are gone, that Ukraine’s armed forces kill the wounded and sell their organs, that Ukraine is using anti-retreat troops to shoot in the back those soldiers who try to surrender, or that Western weapons are of no help to Ukraine’s failing counteroffensive.