DISINFO: Donbas rebelled because Russians in Ukraine were subjected to ethnocide
SUMMARY
The war began when the Ukrainian bourgeoisie that rebelled against joining the Customs Union with Russia on Maidan declared the Russian citizens of Ukraine to be second-class citizens. They began suppressing them with the help of official power structures and paramilitary groups of neo-Nazi stormtroopers. That was not an informational or hybrid war, but a real one. [The war in Donbas] was a struggle of local workers against the Ukrainian nationalist oligarchy, i. e. civil war.
Whether the war will be stopped and whether the ethnocide of Russians inside Ukraine will be stopped is a matter of struggle and, as a result, the balance of power that arises as a result of it.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation campaign against Ukraine, containing multiple disinformation narratives regarding the Euromaidan, the war in Ukraine, and claiming that Ukraine is a Russophobic state.
The spontaneous onset of the Euromaidan protests was an organic reaction by numerous segments of the Ukrainian population to former President Yanukovych’s sudden departure from the promised Association Agreement with the European Union in November 2013. See the full debunk of this disinformation claim here.
The war in eastern Ukraine is not a civil conflict but a well-documented act of aggression by Russian armed forces, ongoing since February 2014.
There is no ethnocide of Russians in Ukraine. Ethnocide means the destruction of culture while keeping the people. The Russian culture - language and literature - was not banned in Ukraine. Ukraine banned Communist ideology, but not the Russian culture. Moreover, Russians did not become second-class citizens during the Euromaidan. There were many Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine and citizens of Russia who supported the Euromaidan and took part in the protests in Kyiv and in the South and East of Ukraine, including Crimea and Donbas.
See similar disinformation cases alleging that Euromaidan and pro-European politics led to the collapse of Ukraine, that Ukraine finally becomes "anti-Russia", that the coup in 2013-2014 is the root cause of the war and other problems in Ukraine, that Euromaidan and pro-European politics led to the collapse of Ukraine, or that Euromaidan coup led to civil war in Donbas.