DISINFO: Crisis in Ukraine caused by anti-Russian policy of the West
SUMMARY
The crisis in Ukraine is a direct result of the anti-Russian confrontational policy of the United States and Western countries, which have systematically violated Russia's legitimate security interests over the past decades.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about encircling Russia and Russia as a victim, aiming to portray Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as justified on a base of legitimate interests. Russia spent years preparing the information battleground prior to its kinetic attack.
Messages about “Russia’s security concerns” are a core element of pro-Kremlin disinformation, and have been massively promoted to defend Moscow’s aggression. This narrative falsely portrays Russia as the target of Western belligerence. In reality, Russia has been the only aggressive actor, carrying out destructive wars in Georgia and Ukraine and fomenting separatist conflicts in those countries and Moldova, while Western nations only adopted a defensive stance as a reaction.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that in Ukraine, the West was attempting an Operation Barbarossa 2.0, that Merkel and Hollande admitted that the Minsk Agreements were to prepare Ukraine for war, that NATO bases in Ukraine would be an existential threat to Russia, that in the Ukrainian conflict, Russia is the victim and NATO the aggressor, or that the US inadvertently legitimised Russia’s military operation in Ukraine.